Machiavelli's Daughter
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: Giulia Salvatore's adventures continue in the third sequel. Ten years later, the gang has grown up! Had adventures, broken hearts. They are nurses, divorcees, entrepreneurs, fiancées, teachers, parents. And the wheel has started to turn, slowly, at first, but gaining momentum. Things have been set in place to shape the world they will live in. T for now...
1. Alive

**A.N.** : This is an overhaul of what I'd written already of _Machiavelli's Daughter_ because I went back to it after months and didn't like how I'd started the story back up after _Dangerous Beauty_ , so I thought I'd scrap the earlier chapters and go again.

This chapter is dedicated to _**Savanna95**_ whose chapter-by-chapter reviews of _Drunken Binges_ and _Dangerous Beauty_ have made a horrendous week at work bearable!

I'm all caught up with The Originals and I have to say…the best part of that entire season was Yusuf's portrayal of Vincent, and Elijah's freedom. Much as I hate what they did with Elijah's characterisation in the latter seasons _The Originals_ , I love that he finally rid himself of 'Always and forever'. I'm underwhelmed by the storyline, by the lack of any real focus on Hope as a shy little girl with no friends, not just a symbol of the family's redemption, disgusted by Hayley's attitude about and toward Elijah for the whole 'red door' thing - as if she's not done worse, **she set up twelve innocent hybrids to be slaughtered by Klaus so she could get intel on her parents**! AAAARGH! The best parts of this season were Vincent, Josh, Keelin's refreshing attitude, and Elijah playing that piano in the final scene. Although, is this _adieu_ to his lovely suits? Will he be going… _shirtless_?

If anyone wants to chat about Season 4 - in considerable detail - please PM me!

As always happens with my stories, I like to 'correct' what I don't like! And one of the biggest things is that Klaus is a textbook Dark Tetrad personality: Sadistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic and narcissistic. And worse, the writers/characters excuse his behaviour away saying that, a thousand years ago, Mikael smacked him around and belittled him. Tyler's own dad hit and bullied him; Stefan and Damon's dad literally shot them in the back in cold blood. So, not buying that as an excuse for Klaus' behaviour toward anyone, let alone his siblings, especially as Klaus then murdered his own mother and lied about it to everyone, and I will be addressing that in this story, because the writers completely overlooked that enormous bombshell that should've fundamentally altered the family dynamics.

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _01_

 _Alive_

* * *

"I'm... Oh, what is that word? It's so big, so complicated. It's so sad… I've found it now… Alive. I'm alive!" - Idris, _Doctor Who_

* * *

The small ceramic ornament shattered, exploding with the force of a small grenade, dust flying. As her heart stuttered in her throat, there was a yell in the other room, and the tinkling of the piano stopped abruptly with a cacophony of notes out of harmony, her grey-faced little white Siamese cat Simba hissing as a chorus of deep barks resonated through the house. She shot to her feet, startled from her desk, her pale eyes staring with unparalleled intensity at the space on her low mid-century sideboard cabinet where the trinket had rested since she had reclaimed it from Sheila nearly four years ago, after returning to Mystic Falls with a tiny little dumpling, for the first time in her life truly believing she was out of her depth.

Striding around her desk, she carefully picked her way to the mess, tiny feet pattering through the house toward her. Perfect ringlets framed a tiny tanned face, molasses and gold spun and coiled together, glossy and mussed from sleep and bouncing to her jaw, long fine black eyelashes fluttered over exquisite dark eyes, her eyebrows drawn in the same intense expression she had learned from her mother. The dogs, crowding tiny Zita like familiars on guard-duty, sniffed the air and growled, barking, before backing away out of the room: they could sense the magic, unnerved by it.

"Stay where you are, little girl," Giulia said gently, and Zita froze, toeing the threshold, rubbing the back of her ankle with her tiny foot, green pen on her knee and a glittery sticker under her chin.

" _Mamma_ , the monster's broken!" Zita gasped, her sharp dark eyes on the empty space on the sideboard-cabinet. She knew _Mamma_ kept some of her most interesting secrets there, alongside a record-player, the cut-crystal dish of rhubarb-and-custard boiled sweets Sasha sent her from England and the tall vase from Caroline, this week filled with vibrant orange chrysanthemums and Bells of Ireland; the cabinet contained a display of curious things Giulia had picked up on her travels with Caroline before Zita was even born, old photographs of people neither of them had ever met, a constant motivation for her. Inside the cabinets, Giulia's adolescent diaries were a constant source of entertainment. Zita spent hours trying to figure out the handmade wooden puzzles arranged and kept dust-free on the top.

"Sit here for a minute while I tidy up," Giulia said, lifting her daughter onto the leather daybed opposite her desk, smiling to herself despite the stutter of her heart at the totem's destruction, at the sight of another glittery pineapple sticker stuck to one of Zita's beautiful curls. She peeled it off, sticking the pineapple to Zita's little dress, and found a dustpan and brush from the kitchen, tidying up the mess. Two tiny feet, ten glittery lime-green toenails, one colourful evil-eye anklet appeared in front of her, and Giulia glanced up, about to tell Zita off; her expression thoughtful, her little girl handed her a large piece of the broken ornament, the disfigured head of the 'monster'. Giulia took it, staring at the broken piece, the memories it evoked, and what it meant that the ornament had shattered.

"Why's the monster broken?" Zita asked curiously. She still had the tiniest, most adorable lisp on her S's and X's. "Did you drop it?"

"It was _magic_ ," Giulia smiled warmly, and Zita smiled.

"Really?"

"Mm-hmm. It lets me know when there's a _real_ monster close," Giulia said, and Zita peered closer at the broken pieces, the dust. Zita gave her a sceptical look, and Giulia chuckled. "Why don't you go back to the piano? You sounded so beautiful."

"When are we going camping?"

"Soon. I've got a little bit of work to do," Giulia sighed, glancing back at her desk, the phone resting there. She had some calls to make. "Then we can go get Caroline. And we're going to go see your friends."

"Really?" Zita beamed excitedly. "Oh, boy!" Zita grinned and dashed off, the dogs scampering about her feet. Giulia listened, perplexed and amused, as Zita ran around gathering things upstairs. Moments later, the piano started tinkling away. Giulia stood, listening to the music her extraordinarily-gifted daughter brought to life at the tips of her teeny tiny fingertips, unable to even reach the pedals but composing as she played, joyous and excited. Zita had never sat at the piano and banged on the keys; she used to sit in Giulia's lap, her face scrunched in a determined focus, _listening_ , watching Giulia's fingers fly over the keys. She had learned to play by ear, from the moment she was born had been soothed and now found rapture in _music_. Like her mother's habit of burying herself in projects to avoid having to confront her emotions until prepared for the backlash, Zita took to the piano whenever she was overwhelmed, either with joy or with annoyance - very rarely with sadness. Giulia always knew where Zita was emotionally by the piano; if it was ever silent, she knew to coax Zita out of her shell with a pineapple dessert, hedgehog stickers, or an afternoon with Grandma Liz.

Giulia groaned, rolling her neck, and eyed the remnants of Sheila Bennett's early-alarm totem, pondering her way forward. It had been an inevitability she had planned for - meticulously - but…why did it have to be _this_ weekend? Fashioned from clay mixed with the blood of Klaus Mikaelson, the little ornament had been spelled by Sheila Bennett to break when Klaus crossed Virginia state lines. For over a decade they hadn't heard a peep from Klaus Mikaelson, and everyone would have liked it that way, were it not for Stefan's indentured servitude to the sadistic Machiavellian vampire-king.

Grabbing her phone, she first sent a text to Caroline, asking her to pick up her order at the bakery. And then she sent out a group text with one single word: It was her code, a dual warning and signal, to let the appropriate people arm up, reinforce security, bide their time, or surge forward with their tasks. Everyone had their responsibilities. Klaus would have no idea she was anticipating his arrival: but she had been planning for it since he left with Stefan the weekend after the sacrifice ritual that had altered everything. She dialled her phone, could tell she was being answered from inside a moving vehicle. She could practically smell the expensive leather.

"Good thing I had Sheila spell me an early-warning system," Giulia said lightly.

" _Good thing you're in the States to do something about it_ ," Katherine replied. " _They're on their way to Mystic Falls, my guess is they'll get there tomorrow afternoon-ish. Klaus can't travel too far in a confined space without having an epic mantrum."_

"And the sister?"

" _She's still with them. Klaus wants answers; and he's pissed Rebekah lost her pendant. Well - he's pissed in general; but he is still no closer to gaining control and he's…he's woken Rebekah as an insurance-policy_."

"He thinks a forgotten rebound from a century past will keep Stefan by his side as his guard-dog and protector?"

" _The great Klaus Mikaelson isn't what he once was - just as you predicted_ ," Katherine said, and Giulia could hear the smug smile in her rich, purring voice. " _The sister's…_ entertained _by his new lack of control. She's sharper than she looks, Rebekah; I'd watch out for her. She's already figured out he can't compel, can't control his shift, can't keep blood down. She learned his blood cures werewolf-bites, and that he's not toxic himself._ "

"Another failed hunt?"

" _I don't know how you did it, but the werewolves have gone underground; he's finding it harder and harder to track any down_ ," Katherine sighed. " _So keep an eye on your Lockwolves. Especially Mason…those arms_ …" Giulia scoffed, amused. For someone who hated loose ends, Katherine was strangely sentimental about her past lovers. When Giulia had told her about Mason's surprise wedding to Hayley the summer after the sacrifice - he'd gotten her pregnant, no doubt her plan all along - Katherine had simply sighed, _Decent people_ …

"How's Stefan doing?" Giulia asked quietly. Beyond _Words with Friends_ and messages from Rose telling her that another diary had been mailed to the Boarding House for safe-keeping, she hadn't had much contact from her volatile Salvatore great-uncle. A "decade-long bender" in exchange for a pint of Klaus' blood to heal Damon from a werewolf-bite; Stefan had left Mystic Falls without looking back, leaving them to rebuild their lives without him. An uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous process for several of them.

" _A witch from the old Prohibition days, Gloria, scrubbed Klaus' compulsion from his mind; he remembers his Ripper days with the Originals, back in the Twenties._ " Giulia let out a breath, remembering the 1922 diary she had tucked into his duffel-bag the night he had left Mystic Falls. He could see the entire picture now.

"He remembers loving Rebekah."

" _He'll get over it. He's…different. He's definitely not the Ripper of Monterrey anymore, more like a functioning alcoholic; he's had to learn how to keep it together, to rein it in, so he can cover Klaus' tracks. Any number of Klaus' enemies would rip through him like warm butter if they learned how vulnerable Klaus really is_. _He's been using_ _Stefan to make sure that doesn't happen_ … _What do you want me to do_?"

"Continue as normal," Giulia advised. "Stay in touch. Keep safe, Katherine. And - remember the precautions."

" _Hard to forget_ ," Katherine said with a bite, and Giulia smirked as she hung up. She bit her lip, wincing, troubled that Klaus and Stefan were so close; the sound of the piano brought her out of her thoughts, focused. All of this had been anticipated; she had planned meticulously for what would happen next. The dread unfurling in the pit of her stomach like a poisonous vine was for Zita. Giulia knew what she had set in motion, still believed in _why_ she had done so, but…she had Zita to look after. Giulia had _herself_ to look after, for Zita: She wasn't going to have the same childhood Giulia had.

"You ready, little girl?" Giulia called, and started putting the dogs on their leashes. "Gallant! C'mon, behave! Where's Tisiphone? I know you're excited, Zeus. Zita, would you please come help me corral your fur-siblings?"

"Zeus, come here!" Zita cooed, lisping adorably, as she set her expression to one of determination and their pale-eyed dark-silver Weimeraner sat obediently, sniffing at her curls and giving her little ear a lick that made her shiver and duck away, twitching as she used her dress to wipe her ear. "Is Simba coming with us?"

"No, Simba has to stay at home," Giulia said, glancing around to make sure her beautiful, aloof Siamese didn't try to make a break outside in the anarchy of leashing a Weimeraner, a long-haired dappled miniature dachshund and her black-and-tan smooth-haired baby-brother while a happy four-year-old skipped about, buzzing excitedly, and Giulia's phone pinged with texts and emails, responses confirming things were in motion.

"Who's going to make his dinner?" Zita asked. "And what about Hector? She'll think we've _'bandoned_ her if she wakes up and we're gone." Giulia smiled to herself.

"Don't you worry, I'll be coming back to feed Simba and Hector," she said, shaking her head. She eyed Zita, her tiny tongue sticking out, in danger of being licked to death by the dogs, as she focused on trying to do up the buckles on her sandals. Giulia squatted to try and help, getting a warm wet nose in the neck and her toes licked for her trouble.

"I can do it!" Zita protested, tongue still sticking out in concentration.

"Alright," Giulia smiled, holding up her hands. She did a quick check and made sure they had everything. She had already driven her beloved _Beetle_ and the teardrop-trailer over to the Boarding House meadow and set up their pitch for the weekend, knew Rose was hard at work ensuring everything was running smoothly. This year marked the fourth annual vintage festival hosted at the Boarding House; capable Rose had some things down to an art. "Hold on, before we go outside." She sprayed Zita with sunscreen, letting her rub it in on her legs, smiling at the face she pulled as Giulia sprayed sunscreen on her hands and delicately rubbed it all over her face, over her ears - Giulia always forgot her own ears! She chuckled richly, holding Zita's little cheeks, and surprised a laugh out of her little girl by leaning in to blow a raspberry against her perfect little lips. Zita scrunched up her face, her eyes twinkling as she laughed; Giulia tucked a wide-brimmed hat on her head, a little black one Zita had picked out on a shopping-trip with Caroline, because it matched the ones Giulia owned.

"Have you got your backpack?" Giulia asked, and Zita shifted, pursing her lips guiltily. "What's up, sweet-pea?"

"It's heavy," Zita admitted. She glanced up at Giulia looking contrite. "Please could you carry it for me?"

"Will you show me what's inside it?" Giulia asked. "You remember what happened to the peach that went mouldy."

"Yes," Zita sighed, her cheeks flushing delicately with colour. Zita unzipped her backpack, and Giulia peered inside. Inside it were a four-year-old's essentials, and it was clear she had learned from her mother. Her dark-chocolate cherry lip-balm from her Christmas stocking that she treated much like Giulia did her favourite red lipstick; a jigsaw in the shape of a butterfly; a coin-purse, with the quarters Liz gave her, collected over weeks to buy stickers; and her diary. She saw Giulia writing in hers all the time, jotting down notes, sticking in photographs, sticky-notes, colour-swatches, everything, and children learned by example. Zita kept her own little diary, full of obscure colouring, stickers and unusually poignant things, like movie ticket-stubs, wrappers from candy someone at day-care had shared with her, bright feathers from the now-departed lovebirds Grace and Giorgio, pressed flowers and leaves she had found on walks with Giulia and Caroline and Liz and the Saltzmans in the woods, postcards, copies of photographs she asked Giulia to print, taken on her phone. There was the ancient digital-camera Caroline had once documented their epic transcontinental road-trip with, and passed on to Zita, battered and much-loved with a few amazing stories to tell; a deck of _Uno_ cards, a bottle of _Essie_ nail-polish in 'Bordeaux' Giulia had been missing for weeks, and the black-and-purple Maleficent-inspired _Monstroctopus_ , a gift from Cara when Giulia had brought the newest generation of Salvatores home, and which Zita didn't sleep without. There was also a copy of _The BFG_ , which Giulia had been reading to her. Four years old and startlingly gifted with music as she was, Zita couldn't read her letters; Giulia had taught her how to read sheet-music, but she liked being read to. And Giulia liked cuddling while she read to her little girl. It was one of her favourite parts of their day.

"Um - why did you pack a DVD?" Giulia asked, glancing from Zita to the copy of _Wonder Woman_ with an arched eyebrow.

"For Lagertha!" Zita beamed. "I promised she could borrow it. Finn says she was a worrier too."

"A _warrior_ ," Giulia corrected, chuckling. "Alright. You can give her the DVD. She may want to watch the movie with you, though."

"I couldn't find _Ferdinand_ for Finn," Zita said, frowning thoughtfully.

"You don't have to give away your things, you know," Giulia said, smiling warmly at her generous-hearted little girl. "Especially as they're actually mine. I'm assuming the nail-polish is for Gyda."

"Mm-hmm. Where's _Ferdinand_?" Zita pressed.

"I already put it in the teardrop," Giulia said. "Maybe Ruth can read it to you and Penelope."

"Yes!" Zita grinned, tripping over Gallant, who yelped as Zita sprawled on her bottom. Giulia had to stifle her laugh at the startled expression on Zita's face, wondering how she had gotten there.

There was no such thing as 'travelling light' with a four-year-old, or leaving the house on time, no matter how much effort Giulia put into being prompt. She had learned not to stress about it; most of her friends now had children of their own, and had come to understand. So, after wrangling the dogs, buckling Zita's sandals and shouldering her little backpack, Giulia set off from the house with the little chaotic army of her own making, Zita holding her hand and skipping beside her, chattering happily. Caroline met them at the end of the private road in her _Jeep_ , a pink bakery box on the passenger-seat, hidden from Zita's view as Caroline kissed her goddaughter and buckled her in to her booster-seat, and Giulia settled the dogs in the back.

"Hi, little girl!" Caroline beamed at Zita. "Are you ready for an adventure?"

"Yes! I'm ready to _dance_. Mamma says there's dancing."

"Are you gonna teach me?"

"If you'd like. Is Kol gonna be there?"

"I heard a rumour he is," Caroline smiled. "I like your sticker. Who'd you like to listen to today?"

"Mm. May we have _Hole_?"

"You got it," Caroline smiled, rolling her eyes at Giulia as she climbed into her seat. Caroline blamed Giulia entirely for Zita's eclectic musical tastes; there was no Taylor Swift for the littlest Miss Salvatore, no encouraging her to gain success by exploiting others. It was Sharon Stone, Mendelssohn, _The Kinks_ , Eddie South or Bach, anything rock or punk, P!nk or _Led Zeppelin_ ; Ariana Grande was acceptable after her OneLove concert in response to a terrorist-attack - that career and character-defining event was in keeping with the role-models Giulia wanted her little girl to grow up emulating: the striving elegance, intelligence and class of Emma Watson; the ferocity of P!nk's feminism; the pure naïveté and strength of character of Wonder Woman; the exquisite lyricism of Sharon Stone; the poetry of Patti Smith and the integrity of Ayn Rand, Angela Davis, Octavia Spencer; the humility and humanity of J.K. Rowling; the earthy realism of Roseanne, challenging poignant topics others would shy away from with humour and dignity.

"How was your morning?" Caroline asked, as Giulia settled herself in the passenger-seat with the bakery box, inhaling the scent of freshly-baked goodness within, and resisting the urge to eat everything inside.

"Miss Zita was composing again," Giulia smiled softly. "And we got the duplex and the two-bedroom with the basement on Primrose." Caroline beamed, clapping her hands excitedly.

"And I've got all the permits for Butterfield Lane, so we can schedule demo-day," Caroline said. Giulia chortled. She loved demo-days. "I knew that'd make _you_ happy. _And_ we've had two offers on Number Seven which is _really_ encouraging."

The site of the farmhouse Giulia had burned to the ground ten years ago, after the owner and sole resident had been killed by the nest of vampires feeding off her, torturing Stefan for information on Katherine, had reverted back to the town; Giulia and Caroline had bought it, the land backing onto the woods Giulia owned, and had developed it into four apartments and eleven two-bedroom houses with sizeable backyards and a playground, two parking spaces each and a small convenience store that saw a lot of traffic from people stopping by on their way home from work in Richmond. They were homes for first-time buyers, young couples and small families who had previously struggled to get onto the property-ladder.

The rest of Ms Gibbons' land had been turned into the Edible Schoolyard, a working farm, a project that was the brainchild of Giulia, Caroline and the Unified School District, wanting to teach kids about natural ecosystems, agriculture, nutrition and life-skills like budgeting and cooking, teaching kids who'd never seen a live pig what went into their meals. After buying and remodelling neglected homes all over Mystic Falls, these new projects had been a little more ambitious, some were ongoing, culminating in the jewel of their burgeoning careers, the mall. They had given the town a much-needed facelift and a push into the twenty-first-century, at the same time keeping giant developers away from their town limits. Their projects were Giulia's passion and Caroline's baby.

"That is good," Giulia smiled, happy. "That just leaves Number 11 and they're all sold."

"I know. It'll be nice to see people settling in there, you know?" Caroline smiled.

"How's Finn doing with the garden maintenance?"

"I mean, it seems like nothing tires him out!" Caroline laughed. "Mysterious handsome guy appears out of nowhere, and all he wants to do is dig and tend the goats and pull weeds. Sets the bar pretty high, just does _not_ stop working! Rose says he's amazing at the Boarding House - I was at the Edible Schoolyard when some of the little kids were there for a workshop, he was _so_ incredibly sweet and patient with them."

"And his English?"

"I mean, it's getting better. You can tell when you're talking to him, he really _listens_ , and he thinks about how he wants to answer," Caroline sighed softly. "Not like me, Foot-in-Mouth Forbes. Rose and I are _totally_ crushing on him." Giulia chuckled.

"I'll be sure to let him know that. He gives great squirm," she smiled softly to herself.

"Oh, these are all your messages from this morning," Caroline said, taking a wad of Post-Its from the centre console and handing them to Giulia. "The pipes were laid and they put the floor down in the farmhouse on Gilbert Drive, the guys are gonna go in with the dry-wall, and the mudders are on standby! They finished the job on Juniper really well, I'm really happy with the team we put together, those kids really take a lot of pride in the job they do. So much better than the guys we used on Sixth."

"I know," Giulia nodded; she agreed. "Have there been any more murmurings about the meeting on Thursday? Take a left here…"

"Some," Caroline said, nodding, indicating to turn, giving her a strange look; Giulia was directing her _away_ from the Boarding House, where they should be headed. "I think the turnout was amazing; and I think people went away really thinking about the points we made. You know, we have to be proactive, this is how we protect the town we love, ensuring more organic growth, bringing more money in… I think the mall going up really has helped people see things can be done, and done _beautifully_ , to actually enhance the town… After all the resistance the town got, the abuse _we_ got, I mean – it's amazing how people's opinions can change when there's money involved! And it _has_ brought in the economy we needed. Everything was starting to get so stagnant; there's actually stuff to draw people to the town, and young people can actually afford to live here."

Giulia smiled to herself; these were all the arguments she had used to convince Caroline, four years ago, to help her put the idea forward to the town to build their first ever mall. Finished just over a year ago, it was a beautiful modern-traditional redbrick and blackened steel jewel full of polished floors and a lot of natural light, filled with independent boutiques, high-end department stores, niche cafés and unusual restaurants, a cooking school, mini day-spa, tutoring lounge and science centre, art gallery and dance-studio, to name a few of the attractions; as yet they'd had not one single empty store. And everything was accessible through the town centre, drawing people _in_ to Mystic Falls: they came for the mall and stayed for the cosy small town vibe, rejuvenated by the economy boosted by all those jobs created within the mall.

"Any word on the land by the bus depot?" Giulia asked.

"I think the biggest challenge will be repurposing the old depot," Caroline sighed. "If we're moving the depot out of the centre of town so we can do that Park-and-Ride thing so Main Street doesn't get congested with traffic to get to the mall, what happens to the old depot?"

"It's a historical building," Giulia said, "so it's protected, but there's actually very few limitations on what it could be renovated into. Considering it's such an agricultural area, it's making me think of farmer's markets. Like Borough Market in London. You know?"

"Ooh. Yeah. Yum!" Caroline beamed.

"And the location is brilliant, too," Giulia mused.

"By the way, you know the Town Council's already impressed with your designs for the new depot, with the little convenience store, and a few of them are really taken with the idea of the little bed-and-breakfast owned and operated by the town as a money-earner," Caroline said. "It's a shame we're a stop-along-the-way and not a destination…"

"We'd lose all our humble small-town charm," Giulia smiled. "All our history…" She trailed off, looking through the windshield as Caroline put the _Jeep_ in park. Ten years ago, it had been a spooky part of Mystic Falls history left to rot. The decaying house located where a hundred witches had been massacred centuries before now no longer _looked_ like a haunted mansion, the beautiful antebellum house now a crisp white, with sage-green shutters, pretty clematis and honeysuckle and a redbrick circular footpath in front of the house, the flowerbeds overflowing with herbs and plants and delicate flowers and succulents in pretty greens and purples, flecked with white, a stone birdbath water-feature bubbling delicately in the circular bed in the middle.

"It is _so_ pretty, though," Caroline sighed despondently. It was one of their earliest projects, after Giulia and Sheila Bennett had lobbied the town for historical status; because of the witch-spirits, they'd had a string of nasty accidents, until Sheila had put a stop to it. Now, the spirits were focused, kept busy; and Giulia had been working on something with Sheila that would keep them placated.

"I think we really need to rethink how we handle marketing this place," Caroline sighed gloomily, peering through the windshield. "It's obvious interest has dried up, I just don't know where we go from here."

"Don't worry about the house," Giulia said lightly. "I've been talking to Sheila about it. Something that can appease the witches and put some coin in our pockets to cover the cost of the renovation."

"Oh?" Caroline blinked.

"I've been talking to Sheila about her _legacy_. You know, she's retired from full-time teaching and spends a lot of time with Penelope, but she's still itchy," Giulia said. "I went to U.V. and suggested they fund Sheila's efforts to create a permanent exhibit specialising in the history of witches and the occult in the area, specifically Mystic Falls."

"A museum?"

"We'd rent the property to the university, long-term," Giulia said. "And they'd get a permanent exhibit and a curated reference library. It would be Sheila's legacy for Penelope and the Unborn… But for now, I've found a purpose for the house in the short-term."

"What's that?"

"In a minute. What're these?" Giulia asked, picking up the manila folders Caroline had wedged in the door. Caroline gave her a sunny smile.

"There are two properties right next to each other, the owners both went into homes recently. One has an insanely huge basement; the other has a really beautiful yard they obviously put so much love into, so if we buy it I think we really have to be careful to respect it. I _really_ want them."

"My God, you're expensive," Giulia sighed, flicking through the photographs and property details. Caroline chuckled.

"One still has all the original fittings; the other one has a lot of damage from _damp_ but I'll get you in to have a look and see what you can do with them, because they're kinda clean slates once we've ripped everything out and repaired what needs attention. And then, there's this. Colonial farmhouse on three acres, it's been abandoned for years, the title-holder of the deed finally died so it's reverted back to the county."

"That could be very pretty," Giulia said thoughtfully, taking the photograph. Two-storeys, non-symmetrical, with a redbrick two-storey porch to the left and a bay-room to the right.

"Inside there's like this built-in banquette - like, you know in _Atonement_ , the kind of internal architecture in that? And then, _this_ one. It's actually a few properties along from our renovation on Briar Road, it's _way_ back from the road behind tons of trees; access isn't _challenging_ , but if you didn't know you were looking for something, you'd never find it," Caroline said. Giulia frowned at the photograph. A decayed three-storeyed Victorian with a cupola made almost entirely of windows. The potential for _that_ little room alone drew Giulia in, as much as the usable attic space beneath. Caroline loved timeless _Practical Magic_ -esque Victorians they could breathe new life into. Alongside their small first-time-buyer properties, she and Caroline also invested in renovating larger, far grander properties – old colonial mansions, grand Victorians, farmhouses, barns and, more difficult and far more fulfilling to Giulia, protected historical buildings. They were trusted to do their research and really breathe new life into neglected old properties that had once had great significance to the town.

"Alright. Let me take a look during the week, I'll run some numbers, see the maximum you can bid," Giulia sighed, and Caroline beamed.

"So, why are we _here_ , exactly?" she asked, as Giulia climbed out of the _Jeep_.

"I mentioned I'd found a temporary use for the house," Giulia began, unbuckling a straining Zita, who recognised the house and was fidgeting to be free from her booster-seat, grinning, as Caroline let the dogs out, warning them sternly not to dig up the succulents. They knew the house, too. Zita loved the pretty backyard with the swing in the old plum-tree, and the creek where she'd often caught fish.

Caroline didn't know the secret, but Zita did: Caroline thought Zita had imaginary friends.

Giulia took out her key, letting them into the house, Zita bouncing in her excitement. As soon as they were inside, Zita raced through the foyer, the sunshine glinting off the parquet floor trimmed with mosaic-inlays, the breeze stirring the delicate white sheers over the windows in the formal dining-room, and the huge glass vase of white peonies and lilac resting on the large round table in the centre of the foyer; Finn had cut the flowers from the Boarding House gardens, one of the perks of his job.

"I mean, Scarlett O'Hara would be impressed!" Caroline blurted indignantly, still upset after all the work they had put into the house. It had been their first project, and to date their only unsold property.

"She probably would. Gorgeous staircase for her to trip down," Giulia said, and Caroline shot her a look. "I don't know, I think as a private residence it would lose some of its significance to our town-history. Turning it into a museum and dedicated research centre honours all the people who were killed here. Ensures they're not overlooked because it's uncomfortable for people to remember."

"Is she talking to the witch-spirits?" Caroline asked, perplexed, as Zita danced around the airy rooms, cooing in Italian, coaxing someone to come out and let her kiss them.

"Nope. Her imaginary friends," Giulia chuckled richly, raising her eyes to the mezzanine gallery, where a slash of dark appeared amid the creamy magnolia. Chestnut hair shorn close into a gorgeous fade at the sides, a little longer on top, pretty eyes, thin lips and a rich tan, insane shoulders highlighted by a slim-fitting charcoal Henley shirt, a smile softening the severity of his features, although his eyes lingered apprehensively on Caroline. Silently, he appeared downstairs, behind Zita, playfully pinching her nose, disappearing when she whirled, then grabbing her from behind so she shrieked a delicious giggle as he lifted her into his arms. Giulia smiled and watched as he cuddled her in his arms, responding quietly as Zita jabbered away in rapid – and unbeknownst to her, _medieval_ – Italian, grabbing his cheeks with her tiny, dimpled little hands to pepper his lips with kisses. Zita cradled against his hip, he approached them, eyeing a bemused Caroline warily.

He greeted Giulia with a half-hug around her waist, kissing both cheeks slowly, his expression solemn, closed off… _questioning_. When he spoke, it was in the same medieval Italian Zita had no idea she spoke to him, the same language Finn had been speaking when he had a silver dagger thrust through his heart nine centuries ago: "What has happened?"

Apart from compelled stylists, Giulia had never brought anyone but Zita to the house, and certainly without giving notice. The fact that she had brought Caroline, who was known to Finn if only from afar, was an immediate indicator to quiet, shrewd Finn that something had changed. Giulia smiled gently, glancing past Finn, distracted by an excited, entranced Zita jabbering away in his ear, at the second dark slash in the doorway, this one petite and utterly feminine.

"Caroline…you've met Finn," Giulia said gently, glancing at her best-friend.

Over the last ten years, they had been creating Mystic Falls as a sort of safe-haven. It would always be Stefan and Damon's home, had been for 180 years; it would also be Caroline's home, too. Her first home, the place where she had _lived_. Where she had grown up. It was part of her first life, her only human life. That would always make this town special, worth protecting. And it was now home to Rose, too. And it was home to Mason, and Hayley, and their son Spencer. To Giulia, again, after her sojourns to New York City and various European cities. It was Zita's home.

In ten years, they had had no vampire-attacks. No werewolf-encroachment on their territory. No campers had been found mauled to death in the woods. Giulia had made sure of it.

Over the last decade, the ideology of Mystic Falls' secret Council had evolved to reflect the new enlightened generation's ideas. Caroline, Rose, Damon, Giulia herself, would always be welcome in town for as long as they helped protect it – from others. Not just from developers, but from the monsters that truly went bump in the night… The ones like Klaus.

Giulia knew, even if the others had become complacent and forgotten, that they were living in a sort of détente, a period of grace – between one bad thing happening, waiting for another to brew up. Giulia called it _regression to the mean_ ; things had to find their way back. Nothing could ever be wholly calm or wholly chaotic, not for long. Wars wound down, fashions evolved, every decade was a reaction – a counteraction – to the one before it. Full to the brim with adventures and chaos and delicious memories and heartbreak as the last ten years had been…they were due some upheaval. Some supernatural interference.

Klaus had demanded a decade of Stefan's life in payment for saving Damon's. A pint of Klaus' blood, for Stefan's freedom. The little blood-bound clay totem shattering this morning had literally announced Klaus' return with a bang. Giulia had always been proactive. Rather than wait for things to happen, she went out and seized life by the balls.

Months ago, Giulia had pulled the silver-dagger out of Finn's chest, secreted the dagger away, and started helping the medieval vampire acclimate to modern life.

After Elijah, the next-born in a sprawling family was Finn. A twin - the death of Finn's twin-sister Freyja had set their parents on a path that had led ultimately to the creation of vampires. The Original family. From them, every vampire in existence had been created. Brothers and sisters – Kol, a cousin, the son of their mother's sister, taken as an infant due to his mother's mental instability. And a daughter. The only child of Elijah's out of seven to survive.

There was only one way to kill an Original vampire – and then, only temporarily. A mystical dagger, forged of silver and magic, when coated with the ash of an ancient white oak Elijah and Finn's mother had used in the spell that created her children as vampires – embedded in their hearts, rendered Original vampires…for all intents and purposes, dead.

Kol had escaped that fate. Because Giulia had stolen and hidden away the two spare silver-daggers Klaus had been careless enough to hand out ten years ago, superbly arrogant in his belief he was untouchable, trying to get Elijah out of his way to complete the sacrifice ritual to release his true nature. But Finn… He had spent a millennium inside a coffin, a silver dagger embedded in his breastbone. Now, Finn's hazel eyes skimmed from Giulia and Caroline and back.

"Um…we've met," Caroline said gently, with a hesitant smile. She frowned slightly at Giulia. "You're…a gardener at the Boarding House?"

In his human life, Finn had shared the labouring of a farm with his older-brother Elijah. Everything they grew sustained their family, and a thousand years ago a failed crop meant a slow, agonising death. In trying to help him acclimate to this new time, Giulia had given Finn a job she knew was ingrained in his personality – a thousand years ago or now, farming essentially had not changed. The methods and machinery had, but the backbreaking hard-work and dutiful care of the crops was the same. Working at the Boarding House put Finn in limited contact with people from whom he could learn more about the English language, the culture, how people dressed and held themselves; he had to puzzle out why no-one carried weapons – guns baffled him – and his job gave him something to _do_.

Eternity without purpose was dull.

"I am," Finn said quietly. He glanced at Giulia. "Giulia believes it will help."

"Your English is already lots better than when Giulia woke me," Gyda spoke up, resting a hand on Finn's arm as she played with one of Zita's curls, her warm smile encouraging, and it was quite startling to hear her speak; the look in her eyes was mature, almost sombre. It was full of warmth, maturity; wisdom, born of experience. When she spoke, her voice was paradoxically light, _young_ ; she _looked_ barely sixteen. Her accent was also a crystal-clear English: she had spent the 1970s in London, before migrating to New York City to party with Willem and Giulia's missing uncle, Joshua Salvatore.

The petite girl with incredibly fine black lashes and pretty lips, and a contradictory aura of fragility, humanity and unflappable courage slipped forward, a smile flirting at her lips as she snuck up and tickled Zita, who wriggled and shrieked with giggles in Finn's arms; he was always so careful with her, cautious of his immense strength around something so utterly delicate. Zita giggled richly, beaming, and leaned down with her lips puckered for a kiss from her friend. Gyda wore a customised _Star Wars_ vest tee, braless, a colourful printed mini-skirt and purple suede ankle-booties, delicate bracelets and bangles glittering on her slender forearms, unusual stud-earrings glinting at her earlobes, her cheeks flushed delicately, eating a passion-fruit with a teaspoon. She was obsessed with fresh fruit. Gyda delicately cupped Zita's face in her slender hand, her fingernails filed, buffed and polished a beautiful glossy navy, pressing a tender kiss to Zita's lips, her smile so warm and genuinely affectionate. Gyda then turned to Caroline, her eyes twinkling.

Since Giulia had woken her, Gyda had been researching the modern world, including its fashions, and she was cultivating an aesthetic of a polished, immaculate rebel, with a focus on the details, nodding to various aspects of her personal history, conscious of the socio-political climate she now found herself reintegrating into, consuming magazines and any newspaper she could get her hands on, exploring the Internet. She was incredibly pretty, and it was a natural prettiness that transcended changing beauty fads throughout the ages; she had a delicate constellation of freckles across her little nose, and her fine black eyelashes framed beautiful dark chocolatey-brown eyes full of depth and warmth. Just like her father's. Petite in build, unassuming, she had learned through experience how to own any room she walked into, her posture extraordinary.

"Caroline, I'd like you to meet Gyda."

Caroline turned wide eyes on Giulia, that characteristic look on her face, the deep breath before the plunge, the cogs whirring manically, biting her tongue, the _bomb-blast_ look. She may not have heard Giulia say the name Gyda in everyday conversation, but she had become as close with Kol as Giulia was, and especially after a few of his more adventurous cocktails, he tended to tell stories. Caroline turned to Giulia, communicating with her eyes what politeness and good breeding prevented her from exploding aloud.

Gyda. _The_ Gyda, the Gyda that Kol told stories about. Gyda, an Original. In the company of the best groundskeeper ever employed at the Boarding House, who was ' _so_ incredibly sweet and patient' with the little kids visiting the Edible Schoolyard, and on whom Caroline and Rose playfully admitted to being 'totalling crushing'.

"Hello, Caroline," Gyda beamed, in her crisp accent, which brought home a lot of memories for Giulia, of living and studying in London, taking 'city breaks' to various European cities every other weekend, ostensibly to do research for her degrees, but also because the opportunity was there, and she wasn't a fool not to take it. "Giulia and Zita have told us so much about you."

"It's nice to meet you," Caroline said, smiling politely.

"What do _you_ think to my haircut? I think it's marvellous; Isak says he doesn't like it." She pulled a face as she knelt to give the mini-dachshunds a vigorous pat, give Zeus a full-body hug and scratch his ears the way he liked.

"It's not Isak's hair!" Zita chirped, her little face crinkling into a frown, and Gyda grinned, chuckling. Having been daggered in the Eighties by her uncle, Klaus, Gyda's first act to assimilate into modern life was to get a haircut. She had shorn her hair into a stunning pixie-cut; she was obsessed with and had taken on Emma Watson as her role-model and inspiration for her 'rehabilitation' into modern life, deeply impressed with the child-actress' career progression to university graduate, outspoken feminist, socio-environmentally-conscious, conscientious fashion-icon and U.N. spokeswoman. Gyda said Watson reminded her of Shirley Temple, another child-star with an extraordinary adult life.

"That's exactly what I told him," Gyda smiled, leaning away from Gallant as he tried to lick her face.

"I think the pixie-cut really suits you," Caroline said, gazing at the more petite Gyda, who looked no older than sixteen.

"Thank you!"

"Where's Isak? Is he still pouting?" Giulia asked, in medieval Italian, in an effort to keep Finn part of the conversation, aware that he did struggle to keep up. Amongst themselves, Giulia knew the family spoke a dialect of Old Norse evolved with words and phrases adopted from the language of the Native Americans who had once been their neighbours: it was now, after a millennium, their only common ground.

"Yes," a new voice answered in Italian, a rich tenor, and a tall figure appeared in her peripheral vision, this one golden-blonde rather than glossy chestnut-brunette like Gyda and Finn. Sapphire eyes twinkled irreverently, and Giulia was reminded so vividly of Damon that she almost winced, "But now I see you've brought _treats_."

Giulia scoffed delicately, glancing over at Isak, whose eyes were soaking up every inch of Caroline they could. Of her best-friend, Giulia told him in Italian; "She would eat you alive… Caroline, this Isak."

Isak was _breathtakingly_ handsome, that traffic-stopping, plaster-his-face-on-billboards, can't-believe-he's-not-airbrushed handsome, with intense blue eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose and pretty lips usually puckered in a scowl of distrust at Giulia, or smirking irreverently at his brother and sister, clean-shaven, his sun-streaked blonde hair recently trimmed to tickle his shirt-collars and fall seductively into his eyes. Of all of the Originals she had woken, Giulia had discovered Isak to be the most abrasive, and that was even including _Kol_ , more likely to push back against the boundaries she had set for their rehabilitation, after discovering she couldn't be seduced, persuaded or compelled into doing what he wanted - though it had been amusing for her to let him try. Finn didn't quite know what to make of being awake, of being _alive_ again, and learning that he had been woken after after nine _centuries_. The world was unrecognisable. It wasn't Gyda's nature to be vengeful; and finding her brother Finn alive for the first time in centuries had gentled some of the gorgeous Lagertha's more aggressive reactions. But Isak… Giulia's ancestresses Veronica and Carafina Salvatore had been turned personally by Isak; they had lived in Rome under the Borgia Pope during the 1490s in a _ménage-a-trois_ , until Klaus had tracked Isak down and daggered him, leaving the two sisters bereft of their lover for five centuries.

Giulia hoped he would be different with them than he had acted toward her; but, like every one of the Originals she had woken, Isak had first seen her and hissed " _Lucrezia_!" in a mixture of amazement and horror, guilt flashing across his face before bravado had overwhelmed those extraordinary features. Every single one of the others had seemed either confused or delighted by her resemblance to Elijah's legendary and long-lost lover, a Countess of Provence at the beginning of the 1000s A.D. Willem had confirmed the resemblance was eerie but not identical; it was the eyes, he had told her, the cheekbones. Lucrezia as he remembered her had been older than Giulia was, now flirting closely with thirty. Willem had also confirmed that Isak had always been… _amorous_ ; he had fathered children before being created a vampire, and Giulia's friend Ashlyn was the product of that bloodline.

" _Delicious_ ," Isak sighed reverently, in English, sighing at Caroline. Her best-friend _was_ glorious; she had recently had her hair done, a subtle, glimmering pale-champagne balayage, and her makeup was very pretty today. Caroline had taken special classes around her college degree to learn how to make herself look older than the seventeen years old she had been frozen at. No matter what age Caroline might have been frozen at, she would always have been stunning. The clothes she wore, the way she acted, how she held herself, people tended to overlook that Caroline still resembled a teenager; her height was also an advantage. Standing near petite Gyda, Caroline did look as if she was more than just a single year physiologically older than the thousand-year-old Gyda.

"Continue staring at my best-friend as if she's a prize cut of meat, you'll spend the day re-growing your eyeballs," Giulia warned him lightly. Isak rolled his eyes, but sniffed and glanced away, toward Zita whispering and giggling away in confidence with Finn, cuddling up in his strong arms. "Where's Lagertha?"

"She just got back from the caves, again," Gyda sighed, then shot a smug look at Isak, who simmered, glaring back. He shot Giulia a filthy look: Isak had been house-bound by a combination of the witches' power and Giulia's safety protocols for nearly a fortnight, after his last exhibition. Any den of iniquity to be found in a sixty-mile radius, apparently Isak had a natural homing-beacon for: and he had learned quickly where Giulia's protections ended, and the limits to her tolerance. It was Finn, the one Giulia had worried would struggle to adjust to modern life, who had fought so hard to help her rein Isak's behaviour in: they could not risk discovery - they couldn't risk that Klaus might hear rumours they were awake. As Klaus had no reason _not_ to believe they weren't all still safely tucked up in the coffins in his keeping, it was Lagertha who had finally beaten it into Isak that it was to their benefit to remain hidden in Mystic Falls while they learned about the evolved world they had been reintroduced to.

"She went to the caves _again_?" Giulia sighed, frowning softly, worrying her lip. As she had with Elijah ten years ago, Giulia had taken each of his family-members down to the caves in which their Native neighbours had documented their family-history. The early settlement of the Vikings, the peace, and then the war between Viking settlers and Native werewolves, triggered by the death of a young Viking boy the night of a full-moon. Death, destruction, plagues, war. The creation of vampires by a powerful witch. The murder of that witch, their mother, Gyda's grandmother, Esther. Every one of them had reacted differently to realising Klaus had lied to them for a thousand years - that _he_ had murdered their mother in cold blood, lied to them and told them it was Mikael, their father, so they would stand by his side and protect him, from the husband of a murdered wife seeking justice.

Finn had known. He had been very quiet when Giulia showed him the cave-paintings - he was quiet anyway, but that afternoon… He had wept, in the darkness of the caves, his palm resting against the graffiti carved into the cave-walls by Elijah's sons a millennium ago. He had told Giulia that he had foolishly confronted Klaus, alone, after hearing a whisper; fearful of being abandoned because of the horrifying truth he kept to himself, justifying his actions with the spell Esther had used to subdue his werewolf traits, Klaus had daggered Finn. And he had never thought twice about leaving him there.

But Lagertha… Lagertha had once been a bereft mother, before that, a shield-maiden, fighting in the shield-wall alongside her father and brothers in the Old Country during spring raids; it was Lagertha's battered shield Gyda had picked up to defend herself and Rebekah when Lagertha had finally fallen, broken by Mikael the night he and Esther created their surviving children into vampires. A desperate act to stop the war with werewolves started when their youngest brother, Henrik, had snuck out of the jarlshall the night of the full-moon to chase down and drag back Klaus, who had slipped out of the safety of the jarlshall in spite of his father's laws, to bed a slave-girl he liked to fuck and whom Finn had truly loved, in his quiet, stoic way. Every day since Giulia had woken her, Lagertha walked to the caves. The dynamics between the Original siblings was convoluted and dysfunctional at best; she knew Lagertha was reconciling that she had protected her mother's murderer, and been punished for her loyalty and ferocity against their enemies with a silver-dagger to her heart.

Lagertha was not the personality to forgive injustice, she was fierce and true-hearted, courageous and wise, martial, a feminist, at times gentle and seductive, sweet, and the last person one would expect to be touched by sentimental acts, like Finn bringing fresh flowers home, or cuddling and giggling with a four-year-old in the garden, braiding tiny flowers into Zita's riotous curls.

She would not forgive the wrongs inflicted on her family: in her mind, Niklaus was the ruination of their family, their home, and claiming to be the only victim.

And Giulia was forcing her to wait to strike back. To _think_ , about how she truly felt about this revelation. What it meant to her, to her dynamic with different siblings. What she was going to do next.

It was Isak whose reaction Giulia was still uncertain of. He was irreverent, lusty, arrogant and charming as a form of self-preservation, keeping everything at bay, so like Damon it was no wonder she didn't get along with him; but the _real_ stuff, finding out his monstrous, abusive half-brother had murdered his mother… It was the first time Giulia had seen Isak solemn, thoughtful, letting his guard down, letting something _in_. She had left him to react in private, having too much experience with Damon not to recognise he was skating the razor's edge of a potentially violent meltdown - and she had no intention of being caught up in it, knew he would loathe her for being witness to it. Men like Isak needed to be assured of utter privacy before they would allow themselves to break: No-one ever saw the struggle to put themselves back together, but it often took longer and was more painful than others.

"Don't worry; I'm keeping her distracted with _Netflix_ ," Gyda smiled, drawing Giulia's attention away from Isak. "We've been - what do you call it - 'marathoning' _Supernatural_."

"Oh, dear. Really?" Giulia asked, chuckling.

"It's that or watch the news - and it's making me…angry. I've heard this vitriol before. What - what _happened_ , Giulia?"

"Bowie died," Giulia said gloomily, and Gyda's head drooped sorrowfully. "I don't want to say he was the glue holding the fabric of the universe together, however…" She waved her hand enigmatically.

"It's…it's making me… _wrathful_. Isak keeps fighting me for the remote-control, saying I'm getting too worked up… I've - I've _seen_ _this_ before… I've heard this vitriol and ignorant rhetoric _before_. Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was legal, too," Gyda said, impassioned, and Giulia could tell she was getting worked up. Giulia didn't blame her. Giulia recognised the dark irony in a _vampire_ showing more humanity than the human-beings who continued to excuse child-massacres by touting their coveted Second Amendment to protect their business-interests - an Amendment taken completely out of context for its original purpose, an Amendment to a document that compromised that slaves and freed African-Americans should be counted as three-fifths of a person for taxation and State representation purposes, allowing slaveholder interests to dominate the government of the United States until 1861 - until the Fourteenth Amendment specifically repealed the compromise. Sadly, it had taken a gruelling Civil War, the assassination of a President and the threat of no representation in Congress for the Confederacy to ratify the Amendment.

Giulia dreaded what had to happen before they achieved a much-desired resolution to the shocking escalation in the number of school shootings since the New Year alone because there was so little restriction to obtaining firearms.

After the Grove Hill High School shooting last year, the local attitude toward gun-safety had shifted considerably.

Zita was going to start Kindergarten in September.

Giulia did not want her daughter to have to learn Active-Shooter Drills before she could even read. She should be playing hopscotch and trading stickers and lunch treats and having story-time and colouring, not dodging bullets.

"Jeff Daniels, playing Will McAvoy in the three-season-long TV show called _The Newsroom_. His first epic monologue, _watch it_. You're a politically aware, conscientious feminist who values human-life, supports women's choice, equal rights, reduced wage-gap, the eradication of toxic masculinity, and you've seen empires rise, nations turn on each other, and regimes be overthrown by popular revolt," Giulia said. "You're well-travelled and educated. Watch that monologue. It is extraordinary writing - extraordinary in its rarity. And incredibly poignant for what's happening now."

"I'm so sad I missed Obama's tenure," Gyda said, looking adorably downtrodden. "I was watching him on _YouTube_ earlier; I could listen to him talk _all day_. So eloquent, so…mm, so _thoughtful_ , and dignified… Did he really cut the annual Bush deficit by two-thirds?"

"No need to stop there: In six years, he also nearly tripled the stock-market; cut employment by half; brought gas-prices down to £2.75; ended two wars; cut the uninsured rate in half; he got Bin Laden after 9/11 - oh, and he and his family constitute the _first_ scandal-free presidency in over _thirty_ _years_!" Giulia said proudly. She had a week's worth of well-loved Obama t-shirts on rotation as pyjama tops. They kept her going. And also the idea of _regression to the mean_ ; it couldn't last. It never did. The Constitution had been written with men like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in mind.

"All that in spite of unprecedented Republican obstruction," Caroline spoke up proudly; she had been raised by lifelong Republicans, her mother a female Sheriff, and a father who had left his wife for another man, both of whom were deeply ashamed of their current President. Caroline had great love for Obama, too. Giulia, she believed fiercely in treating people like human-beings, whatever their gender-association, shape, size, colour, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation or level of education, genetic anomalies, physical disfigurements or favourite sports team: she judged people, instead, by the way they handled being caught in traffic, how they treated their children in public, their use of grammar and punctuation in emails, how they cared for their books, how they treated staff in cafés and hotels after a long wait, and their musical taste.

Giulia breathed hard through her nose, having to calm herself down. Trying to live well by herself, her daughter and the people she loved was the best she could do to fight the tsunami of ignorance that seemed poised to wash over her nation and destroy everything. She was raising Zita to be open-minded, unbiased, curious, confident in herself, to know her opinion did have meaning no matter how young she was, to have a strong sense of self-worth, to be educated and conscientious toward others. "But - watch Will McAvoy's speech. It really renewed my hope that there truly are people with such journalistic integrity out there, fighting to make a difference."

"I'll have a search for it on _YouTube_ ," Gyda said, her cheeks dimpling, happy that she could say that so casually. "For now - Lagertha's commandeered the television. She's become alarmingly emotionally invested in those Winchesters."

"Who hasn't?" Giulia said rhetorically, and Gyda smiled.

"Joshua would be delighted that they drive a '67 _Impala_ ," Gyda said quietly, almost as an afterthought; Gyda had been friends with the uncle Giulia had never met. He had disappeared years before she was born, under mysterious circumstances; Giulia had been trying to figure out what happened to him since she discovered a trunk full of his belongings in the attic ten years ago. "And the music, of course. Anyway, science-fiction and fantasy shows always explain what you need to know within every episode; Finn likes them," Gyda shrugged, smiling happily, her eyes twinkling as she smiled at her own long-lost uncle. Giulia pulled a thoughtful face. "And we've made a list of references to research; even I'm struggling with some… Is a Kardashian some sort of fungus? We'll circle back to that: You're not just here to share pastries and introduce a new friend, are you?" Giulia offered up the pink bakery box.

"I need to go upstairs," Giulia said quietly, and Gyda's dark eyes - so like her father's - widened, nodding slowly. A flicker of excitement warmed her cheeks, _delight_. Gyda's natural state was content, relaxed. Like her father, she was creative, an artist gifted with eternity to cultivate her skills, musical - she had spent hours playing the harp Giulia had brought to the house, rather than focus on satisfying her bloodlust. She had been waiting for today.

Giulia didn't miss the look Finn and Isak exchanged; sombre and full of meaning. They knew, because she was otherwise so immovable, that if she was here for this reason, something had definitely happened. Nothing had been able to provoke her to act before she was ready, not screaming themselves hoarse, not the threat of violence, not Gyda's tearful pleading. She hadn't seen her father in decades. Giulia remained immovable.

"How about some coffee? Finn, perhaps you'd like to take Zita out to the creek?" Giulia suggested, in English. Finn gazed at Giulia for a moment, then covertly glanced at Caroline, offering his huge, scarred paw to Zita, whose tiny, unblemished hand slipped into it automatically, guiding her to the back-door, through the white-picketed garden full of parterres overflowing with herbs and plants Finn tended to assiduously.

The enormous broad-shouldered vampire with freshly-shorn dark hair and the tiny little girl skipping beside him made an odd, sweet picture, and Giulia watched them disappear through the honeysuckle-draped arbour gate at the back of the yard into the wilderness of the creek.

Gyda disappeared with the dogs and the bakery-box, followed by Isak, who had already lost interest in any thought of pursuing Caroline. Giulia had discovered Isak to be by turns passionate and joyous, his deep laughter echoing through the house, or irreverent and cold, disdainful, agitated and restless. Compared to his constant and unflappable brother Elijah, and Finn's stoic calm, Isak's personality was a bit jarring; Giulia could see where he and Kol would have bonded as witches of unparalleled talent, and she believed they had both responded to the loss of their magic in similar ways; by pursuing new highs - whether it be in love, in lust, in adventure, in mystical drugs, in living vicariously through powerful witches they met along the way, even going so far as to share their bodies, so they could once again feel the thrill of magic coursing through their veins. Isak was the first to discover vampires could possess the bodies of immortals, according to Kol they had both spent a significant part of the 1300s A.D. in the Far East inhabiting one witch's body after another - before being forcibly expelled by a particularly vicious coven that had finally had enough.

Giulia was left in the immaculate foyer with Caroline, a breeze whispering in through the open front-door, sunlight glinting off the polished floor, the scent of peonies and Gyda's favourite English lavender and chamomile soap on the air, mingling with freshly-baked goodies and the Nicaraguan-blend coffee Isak had taken a liking to, Giulia's only concession to him being housebound. Any evidence of the Originals' early confusion had been repaired by the witches. This land was steeped in magic, and the spirits had a long memory; some of the ancient ones had a personal connection the once very-human Original family. They remembered human Finn, human Lagertha, and the young Gyda who had tried to keep her siblings alive after her mother died in childbirth. They remembered the awing witch Isak had once been.

"So…they're all…"

"Originals," Giulia murmured, glancing toward the noise of Isak using the new coffee-grinder in the spacious kitchen, listening to hear that Lagertha truly was watching _Supernatural_ in the drawing-room, greeting her dogs familiarly - the song ' _Heat of the Moment'_ kept starting and stopping; Giulia smiled - they were watching _Mystery Spot_ \- which meantthe _Trickster_. Zita was still laughing happily and chatting with her giant quiet friend Finn by the bubbling creek. "Finn and Isak are Elijah's younger brothers. Their sister Lagertha is somewhere around here. Fair warning; she's intense. Gyda is Elijah's daughter… Come on…" She gestured for Caroline to follow.

"Where are we going?" Caroline asked. Giulia didn't answer, just indicated she follow, and led the way up through the airy, beautiful plantation house, up to the door to the attic. There was evidence, previously hidden from Caroline's view by the witches, that people did in fact live here. Each of them had their own bedroom, with Gyda's full of clothes, shoes, books, art-supplies, cosmetics she loved to play with; Finn's showed a neat stack of brightly-coloured children's books Gyda was teaching him English by, and which he painstakingly read to Zita whenever they visited; Lagertha's room was immaculate, as she spent so much time wandering the woods and waterfalls around Mystic Falls, the land of her youth, the land where she had lost her own children, curious about the training-equipment in gyms, watching the games at the Sports Park, at the high-school, curious about and delighted by the busload of female Marines travelling through town to the base closest to Mystic Falls. The only thing that pinned her down at the house was footage of the Olympics; she was awed by the Invictus Games; loved NFL Classics games on repeat and Lagertha enjoyed action movies, which she watched with Isak; Finn was awed by anything David Attenborough, a big hero to Giulia since living in London working on her Architecture degree and discovering that his voice soothed her out of any self-induced hysteria. Isak's room was littered with _mementos_ from his outings; books, ladies' lingerie and liquor bottles.

They were all pretty big drinkers, though Lagertha despised the low-alcohol-content American chilled lager she called 'tasteless swill'; Giulia had looked into craft beer, and Finn had started making his own honey mead like in the old days, after introducing beekeeping to the Edible Schoolyard. One cup of Finn's honey-mead knocked Giulia on her ass; she didn't drink like she used to…

At the door to the attic, Giulia sighed, rested her hand on the doorknob, and waited for the pressure to give. Caroline shivered behind her, as they felt something release, almost like the house was sighing.

It cost the spirits to use their energy to keep things safe here.

The attic had new Velux windows, the only modern amendment to the renovation, and sunlight filtered through the clear glass windows into the empty attic, shards of golden light piercing through the eaves, picking up the dust disturbed by their entrance. The floorboards creaked, and the expansive room looked empty.

"Okay…" Caroline shot her a bemused look. "I know it's a great space, but…"

"Look again," Giulia said softly, and Caroline frowned, sighed, and glanced back down the length of the room. She blinked in surprise, and Giulia dawdled forward, drawn as she always was when she came up here, to the man in the crisp suit. _Ermengildo Zegna_. Expensive. Timeless. There was a dull glimmer to his sun-streaked dark-chestnut hair, and in sleep he looked serious and almost pained – an echo of the expression on his face when he was stabbed, she sometimes thought, his skin deadened, greyish, delicate-looking and stretched over dark, empty veins.

Elijah.

It hurt.

Despite the extraordinary life Giulia had built for herself, looking at him still hurt.

She had never once allowed herself to give in to the temptation of removing that dagger from his heart. No matter how much it hurt hers. Not for years. Until, guiltily, reasonably, she had realised that she had stopped missing him; her life was simply too full and too extraordinary to dwell on it. And now, years later, she had resisted waking Elijah until the last minute…because she was reluctant to face the ramifications of him waking, and realising she was alive, and altered, and had grown, and was a mother and the architect of his family's fate and his brother's greatest punishment.

She leaned down, tenderly tucking a lock of his dark hair away from his face. Her fingertips brushed his cheek, and her heart ached painfully as she stroked her thumb over his cheekbone, his eyebrow, over his cold lips.

Caroline's lips parted, as realisation hit home, and she turned wide blue eyes on Giulia for explanation. Her eyes wide, she breathed, "What did you do?"

Giulia swallowed, and she sighed softly; "I stole them."

* * *

 **A.N.** : I know. A long'n, and a good'n. I know you'll all be pretty annoyed that I've changed the beginning again…I just didn't like what I'd written and couldn't get back into it. So, please accept my apologies, and also my first update in _ages_. For Originals family face-claims, please see my profile!


	2. Vacation's Over

**A.N.** : What do you think to the rewrite so far?

This chapter is again dedicated to _Savanna95_ for your ongoing reviews. They make my shitty days at work much better!

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _02_

 _Vacation's Over_

* * *

"Okay, so…you have five _Originals_ living in our witch-house," Caroline said, still with that bomb-blast look on her face. Giulia could see thoughts whirring, cogs spinning as Caroline processed this information. " _Seriously_?! For how long?"

"I've kept them all here since we finished the remodel," Giulia admitted. "Figured it was safer; the witches kept them cloaked… I woke Finn in the New Year."

"Does Rose know - ?"

"She knows he's a vampire. So does your mother, by the way; she kind of knows a little about what's going on. So does Ashlyn. And Sheila… They all know titbits, enough to help but not enough to put them in danger," Giulia said quietly.

"Except from five Original _vampires_!" Caroline blurted, her expression indignant. Giulia didn't blame her for the outburst; she fully anticipated a proper tongue-lashing at a later date when Caroline had had time to fully absorb everything, realise the ramifications and recognise the risks Giulia had taken.

"The precautions have been reinforced," Giulia told her gently. She had made sure this town would remain protected from the supernatural after she had initially left it ten years ago to go to college. "They won't hurt anyone…and these ones are not like Klaus."

"Even Elijah killed people," Caroline said quietly, the gentle voice of reason.

"I don't need to be reminded," Giulia sighed sadly, Slater's hesitant smile flickering through her mind, Rose's struggle with loneliness after five centuries with one person giving her a stomach-ache if she dwelled on it too long. There was a reason Rose had bonded with Matt, who, like her, had been left alone in spite of all their efforts to help support and protect their families. Elijah had killed people; but then, so had Caroline. So had Giulia; she had done it to protect this town, and the people she loved who lived here. Caroline had killed one carnival-worker shortly after she transitioned into a vampire, overwhelmed by her new heightened senses and emotions and the desire for blood. Elijah had killed people because it was necessary to his plans - and because he could, because there was ancient history and bad blood. "They grew up in a different world… But they're learning how to keep under the radar in this one."

Caroline asked curiously, "Why did you wake Finn first?"

"Finn was daggered in the Twelfth Century A.D.," Giulia murmured, gazing at Elijah. "I thought he'd need the most help acclimating… I'd thought if I were to wake the others too soon, he wouldn't get the attention he deserves. Between him and Isak, he's actually the most well-adjusted… He's spent far less time as a vampire than any of the others… He's still quite…"

"Human," Caroline said softly.

"I…was going to say still quite like you," Giulia said. "He's not lost _who_ he is to _what_ he is."

"Why do you let him near Zita?" Caroline asked, her frown gentle but faintly accusatory. Rarely did Caroline comment on Giulia's parenting technique. How Giulia raised her daughter was _her_ business; Caroline was Zita's godmother, Liz her surrogate grandma, but Zita was first and foremost Giulia's daughter. And Giulia was, in spite of a few significant meltdowns in the early days, a wonderful mother. The decisions regarding Zita's safety, upbringing, education, her happiness, were Giulia's to make; there was no way on earth she would jeopardise Zita's delight and innocence, her safety, her _life_ , with the decisions she made for the both of them.

"He adores her. He adores children… When they were human there was no-one Elijah trusted more with his own children than Finn," Giulia said. "It's fundamental to his character; he is hard-working, earnest, and he protects the vulnerable… He looks after his family." Caroline sighed heavily, arms folded over her chest.

When he had woken to a clean, alien world, Finn had looked into Giulia's face, and the colour that had come from replenishing his blood-supply through a transfusion drained from his face. He had stared at Giulia, as if seeing a ghost, startled and at the same time full of wonder, awe. She had seen that look on Elijah, before – as if he recognised her from somewhere, some ancient memory. A name had whispered through her mind, even as it fell from Finn's lips: Lucrezia. A legendary figure in the history of Provence, one of the most powerful women of her time.

She wasn't the Lucrezia of their character-defining vampiric-adolescence, but in a delirium fuelled by werewolf-venom even Elijah had mistaken Giulia for Lucrezia. Through his memories, Giulia knew she did look exceptionally like the long-lost Lucrezia. But it was her resemblance that had given Finn pause – he had been too stunned by her appearance to kill her; and the fact that she knew why he was shocked, could speak medieval French and Italian as if no time had passed, told him that she had seen Elijah's memories of Lucrezia… On quiet evenings before the others had woken, she would come and sit and share a glass of wine with Finn, just sitting and enjoying the fresh air, talking. Companionship. But nothing had coaxed him to open up like introducing Zita, who had smiled, climbed onto the piano-stool, and played for him. Music transcended any language-barrier, any age-gap.

And Finn didn't mind that Giulia hadn't taken the daggers out of his siblings' hearts immediately. She had a plan; and he wanted them left as they were, hurt by their indifference to the suffering Giulia was sure they hadn't realised he was enduring. None of them had endured a daggering of comparable duration to his. They had left him to suffer inside his own mind for nearly a millennium. Elijah's favourite brother. The man he had trusted with his children in their human lives; and had missed for a millennium, throughout the duration of their vampire existence.

"Why was that Isak guy glaring at you?" Caroline asked.

"He's grounded," Giulia said, deadpan. She sighed. "He can be worse than Kol on his really _bad_ days. Only, not completely _blotto_ ; he likes his blood-highs rather than high-balls. There have…been a few incidents with him, in some particular nightclubs and sorority-houses… He's caused me more aggravation than the others combined. So - the witches are keeping him on lockdown until he starts behaving like a good little boy."

"You two don't get along," Caroline guessed, and Giulia shrugged.

"He mistook me for someone from his family's past. And then learned just because I'm not her doesn't mean I'll tolerate his behaviour any more than she would," Giulia said. She got the feeling from Isak that…he'd answer only to the elusive Lucrezia who had fought and earned his grudging respect, even if they had never, according to Finn, truly been friendly. Finn told her Lucrezia had strongly reminded Isak of their mother; calm, transcendent, educated and stern but great-hearted - and ferocious, truly terrifying when crossed. Finn had alluded to a young girl, a ward of Lucrezia's, over whom Lucrezia and Isak had fought like an impudent dog sniffing after her, and the ferocious she-dragon protecting her, her wrath singing his fur every time he got too close and making him think better of approaching again - at least, for a little while.

"What about…Elijah's _daughter_?" Caroline asked, looking a little stunned. Even though Caroline knew Giulia had missed him like a lost limb, they hadn't spoken about Elijah between themselves for years. It was a horrible thought, but he was no longer a direct influence in Giulia's life.

"She was daggered in the 1980s," Giulia said. "She has the healthiest attitude of all of them. Actually she reminds me a little of Lexi."

"That's a name I haven't heard in a while," Caroline said, grimacing guiltily. Part of the messy fallout from Klaus' sacrifice ritual was having to tell Lexi that Stefan had sold himself body and soul to Klaus for a decade, to save Damon's life. She had been…a _tad_ ireful about this, given everything she knew of the brothers' complicated history. Giulia knew there were always infinite angles to look at any given situation. Kol had tried to convince Lexi not to intervene, to let Stefan serve his time, and help repair whatever damage Stefan had endured after the fact.

In a shocking development, it was Damon offering to spend the decade "being Lexi'd" that had finally convinced Lexi not to chase after Stefan and drag him home by his fangs for "de-Ripperfication".

Stefan would spend a decade with Klaus; Damon would spend a decade with Lexi.

Giulia wondered which brother believed they were enduring the worst torment.

"Why…?" Caroline trailed off, sighing and shaking her head.

"What? You're gonna dull your fangs down if you keep grinding them like that… Come on, spill it," Giulia said, giving Caroline a look.

"I mean, why wake these guys at all?" Caroline asked. "We've had like a decade with no drama here."

"Exactly," Giulia sighed. "We've had a decade. Stefan's decade with Klaus is nearly up… They're insurance. Kind of…poetic justice for Klaus."

"I know Elijah thought his family was gone," Caroline said. "Sunk into the seas."

"Klaus always had them on standby. He would _never_ give up control over them," Giulia said.

"So how do you have them?"

"He's arrogant. And - he's been distracted," Giulia shrugged. "It wasn't hard to swipe them from under his nose, not with the help I had…"

"Why did you say waking them is poetic justice for Klaus?" Caroline asked.

"He's had total control over them for a millennium; he forced a promise from them, based on his greatest lie…" At Caroline's bemused expression, Giulia continued: "He murdered their mother, and then pinned it on their father… They have the right to learn that truth, and to process it their own way, away from him… This is the only way I know to break the cycle of his abuse, and ensure their freedom… Vampires live by their example; it's time they evolved and set a new precedent. Once they see the Originals will no longer tolerate Klaus' treatment of them, the majority will stop treating each other by the example they've had set for them. And if Klaus is distracted by his family, he'll have less time for Stefan. For us."

"You really think so?"

"I can hope so," Giulia said. "When the time comes, we might need their help."

"Their help? With Klaus," Caroline guessed, and Giulia nodded noncommittally. It wasn't just their sadistic brother they would need the other Originals to help fight against. Things were heating up with the indignant, zealous remnants of the Order. She had made sure of it. In trying to discover her uncle's fate, Giulia had become involved with - and unbeknownst to the survivors, now pulled the strings within - all that remained of the Order. For a decade, she had been using the soldiers in the warped underground organisation firstly to seek out and neutralise Klaus' enemies, and then pitted them against each other, rooting out liars, betrayers, and cowards, opportunists, idealists and the weary. Amongst Klaus' enemies and within the Order there now survived only the strongest, the most zealous; the most dangerous. It was to deal with _them_ that Giulia had woken the Originals.

All she had to do was provide the motivation to unite them, in spite of this new truth and their mutual loathing of Klaus, to annihilate an enemy common to so many, and to set the precedent for how the next millennium would go. If they were to survive to see it. Nothing forced a person to re-evaluate their life-choices than the threat of imminent death.

She had been playing the Order against itself for years, at the same time systematically eradicating Klaus' enemies, organising massacres and brutalising relationships that had survived the centuries, reorganising alliances, plotting assassinations and weaving the threads of fate and destiny into a rich tapestry that would dictate how the future unfolded. The information she had misappropriated from the executed Slater's studio had formed the basis of her plan to avenge herself, avenge Elijah and his siblings, to avenge anyone ever harmed by Klaus, without ever going after the monster itself. She didn't have to break the narcissist, just the source of his bloated ego: The enemies he had _allowed_ to survive, to continue on, both loathing and fearing him, resentful and seething at the knowledge they were alive to loathe and fear him because he willed it; they endured, in torment, at his mercy, because he wanted it that way. He had built up his reputation over a millennium in the hopes that it would make the only person he had ever feared think twice about approaching him; Mikael, the man who had raised and abused and been embarrassed by him.

Children learned by example: Mikael had punished Klaus for his part in causing Henrik's death, but not killed him, and to this day Klaus lived in perpetual terror of Mikael. He did the same to his own enemies: allowed them to live on in fear of him, constantly running, constantly in a state of hyper-vigilance and paranoia, never truly living. They had forgotten how.

Giulia had started to teach the Originals what it meant to _live_ , in this time, with so many opportunities open to them, especially after the revelation of Klaus' greatest lie, the promise he had held them to, viciously, unforgivingly, one-sidedly, for a millennium. They could be _anything_ they chose in this new age; what would they choose to be, had they no fear of Klaus, or anything else? They had to deal with Klaus' greatest betrayal; and then…well, things would unfold in their own way. Giulia could only gently nudge them in the direction she wanted them to take - and not be seen to be doing it was the key.

Giulia was the only person with the brilliance and gumption to get away with working two armies - and Klaus' enemies did constitute an army; he had lived for so long and treated people so horrifically - against themselves, for no-one's endgame but her own, creating so much devastation in such a narrow time-frame. Calculated chaos. Only one person in the world knew the extent of her involvement in the silent, unending war within the supernatural world: herself. Others knew bits and pieces, enough to build on the reputation that had begun to be whispered about when she was seventeen, enough to give her those few heartbeats of time that were the difference between life and their deaths, and to get her what she needed the first time she politely asked.

As Carafina had once quipped: It wasn't whether she had castrated the Roman legion. It was that people _believed_ she had.

The die had been cast; the threads of fate were weaving themselves together, and she had meticulously planned the pattern they would form. She had moved the chess-pieces across the board, deliberately and carefully, strategic; she was a general. A master strategist.

She knew it was time, when she removed the dagger from Finn's chest.

The totem shattering this morning had only served to force her hand, to do what she had been reluctant to for weeks, running out of excuses to prolong the inevitable.

She needed the Originals awake. All of them.

Giulia needed the _daggers_.

"We've had a ten-year vacation, Car," Giulia told her, on a heavy sigh. "The deep breath before the storm… Vacation's over."

"So…why haven't you woken Elijah yet?" Caroline asked succinctly. She sighed softly, as Giulia hesitated over Elijah's body, Caroline's pretty eyes glancing from Giulia to her dead lover. "It's not because of Fabian, is it?" She asked it quietly, delicately, but it still made Giulia shiver.

"It's…not because of Fabian," Giulia admitted, almost honestly. She couldn't deny Fabian wasn't still taken into consideration; they were still technically married, after all. And just because they had chosen to live separately didn't mean they _wanted_ to be apart. It was best for Zita. It was what Fabian had needed; though he had craved the unexplainable peace her presence granted him, prolonged exposure to Giulia causing his visions to come less and less frequently - and now more than ever they both relied a little too heavily on his foresight. "And it's not because of Zita. It's…because of me."

"Why?" Caroline asked softly, truly interested in Giulia's response.

"Elijah was daggered knowing I was dead; he saw my body burned beyond recognition at the quarry… From a purely pragmatic standpoint I - don't want to have to explain that I can't answer _why_ I didn't die in the sacrifice as a transitioned vampire… And I don't _want_ to learn why. It's been ten years, Car… I've changed."

"Yeah, but, you're better," Caroline said fairly, and Giulia laughed, shaking her head. Caroline could always make her laugh, no matter how dark the situation seemed. She needed Caroline and her shining armour, she needed her Foot-in-Mouth Forbes, her incessantly buoyant, beautiful friend who took every hit with dignity, squaring her shoulders and turning the other cheek. She needed the perspective Caroline gave when she really needed it. She needed Caroline to remind her not to take herself too seriously; and sometimes, to talk her off the ledge.

"I am," she agreed wholeheartedly, rubbing her face with her hands. "I was in such a hideous place when I met Elijah…when everything happened."

"I know," Caroline whispered, her expression harrowed. Seventeen had been horrific for Caroline, too, but she was able to see the silver lining to her transition.

At seventeen, Giulia had been a borderline alcoholic, and a workaholic suffering from insomnia. She had buried herself in her projects to avoid facing her emotional trauma: she had struggled with reconciling that Damon had murdered her _dad_ ; that she had been orphaned, and because of her vampire relatives, pushed out of her family home, because she felt so unsafe, uncared-for, neglected; she had felt betrayed and overlooked by Stefan especially, whom she had blamed as complicit in her dad's sudden death; she had fallen out with Bonnie over the Gilbert device that had ultimately led to Caroline being turned into a vampire by Katherine. She had even smacked Bonnie, the night she had realised Caroline had _died_. She had stopped talking to Elena unless absolutely necessary - indirectly, she had blamed Elena in part for her dad's death, as Stefan had been trying to protect her from Damon… She had been a child-genius abusing alcohol and drugs, strung out from insomnia, forging her way through college classes, overextending herself with schoolwork, private projects, community work, organising the defence of her friends and her town against a looming evil, all the while refusing to stop and acknowledge that she was fundamentally shaken by her father's death, and that her heart just kept getting broken, first with Caroline's transition, then by Tyler triggering his werewolf-curse. She had been taking unplanned road-trips to New York City for long-weekends; putting her life at risk going beyond what she had believed she was capable of, burning two-dozen vampires alive, pitting herself against volatile werewolves who had kidnapped and were tormenting Caroline; Giulia had been tortured in her own library, a place she had always been entitled to feel safe, and never breathed a word about it; and worst of all, she had been cohabiting with and fucking a thousand-year-old Viking vampire, engaging in a game of murder, sexual torment and Machiavellian strategy, out-manoeuvring each other at every turn while gradually learning to let each other in through tiny secret doors in the enormous walls they had built to keep others out. And she had kept whatever their relationship had been from the people closest to her out of dread of their opinion on it.

"The Giulia he will remember is gone," Giulia admitted quietly. "He won't recognise her in me."

It shouldn't even have crossed her mind, but she couldn't help wonder… Giulia _liked_ herself, as she was now. She liked the polished, cultivated Giulia, who no longer used her projects as an escape but for enjoyment, this better-adjusted Giulia with degrees and PhDs under her belt, who had a tiny child who brought nothing but _joy_ and wonder into her daily life, this Giulia who had travelled and lived and studied all over the world, was cultured and excited to explore, wise beyond her years from experience, this calmer, mature still-flawed Giulia that she liked, was proud of being, the reliable, wise Giulia her friends could always count on, whether it was for financial advice, a cup of sugar, a dose of reality, to haul their granddaughters out of hairy situations in New Orleans, or deliver a baby in the kitchen at 3 a.m. in spite of her ingrained terror of childbirth because there was no time to call an ambulance, or destroy a secret-society that imprisoned and experimented on vampires on a small college campus.

Beyond her academic accomplishments - and keeping her friends whole and for the most part alive - she took little pride in her seventeen-year-old self. Grief could only excuse so much, and she wasn't one to let herself off lightly.

Giulia's heart would always stutter, she would always go breathless at the memories of her relationship with Elijah, especially the sexual aspect of it. How could she not? It was the most erotic and sexually-heightened relationship she had ever had, inextricably tangled with an intense emotional connection, deep respect and a soul-deep understanding and appreciation for one another.

It was because of Elijah she knew the love she deserved, and was capable of giving to another: It was because of Elijah she hadn't been afraid to acknowledge the real thing in her complicated, excruciatingly emotional relationship with Fabian, and refused to give up on. Real love was rare; she was spoiled to experience two great loves as exquisite and heart-breaking as Elijah and Fabian. She had Elijah to thank for teaching her to be unafraid of letting in genuine, deep love, in spite of all the complications and pain.

The pain made it real.

Pain begot scars; scars begot strength.

But no matter what, Elijah, and his passion and their love-affair, was still inextricably tied with that hideous time in Giulia's life, defined by her grief, her alcoholism, her glacial anger and disappointment in the people who should never have let her down, the pressure she had put on herself, the risks she had taken because she had believed no-one else could do what she shouldn't have been able to, for the people she loved most in the world, and the people who had let her down - she didn't like remembering how much pain she had truly been in. She had been crippled under the weight of her grief, her anger, using her devastating intellect as her greatest, impenetrable defence.

Elijah had known her as that seventeen-year-old she couldn't look back on without wincing in discomfort. She was not ashamed, but she was the first to acknowledge that she had not been the best version of herself, which she had since worked on, hourly, polished and cultivated - and done so in Elijah's absence. He had had no part in Giulia's journey to becoming an emotionally healthy adult; she had made choice after choice, nurturing the potential of this Giulia she now was.

"Elijah was there when I wouldn't let anyone else be," Giulia said softly. "After Damon…and Stefan's part in my dad's death… My anger, their betrayal - if it weren't for Elijah I would've grown into an adult hostile toward even the idea of letting anyone close enough to trust, let alone be emotionally intimate with… If it weren't for him, I'd've run for the hills the first time I ever met Fabian."

"He's that important to you?"

"He was. Is? I don't know… I haven't been emotionally intimate with him for a decade…" Giulia said. "We started as friends… But how do _I_ go back to that? And…should I? Do I… Will he _fit_? I - We don't have to _be_ anything, and I don't expect anything to come of waking him…after all, I'm a mother, we have a business, and I have a relationship with my husband that is just far too complicated to even entertain the idea of introducing Elijah into the mess… Just the thought that he could be…irrelevant to my life now is upsetting to me."

Caroline sighed heavily, thinking her answer through.

"I know Elijah just wanted his family back. You did that for him. His daughter's downstairs watching _Supernatural_ , y'know, _you_ did that. For him. I'm pretty sure you did it because you _could_ , because you've got _gumption_ , and you probably have some big endgame in mind, but… You did it," Caroline sighed, shrugging. "I think that is pretty above-and-beyond extraordinary. Regardless of like… _romance_ …if he wakes and you're sure a relationship with Elijah's still worth pursuing, considering who you are now and who he is, that's a pretty strong place to start, no matter what that relationship turns out to be, whether it's just friends, or something else. And…yeah, Fabian…that's complicated. Our _lives_ are complicated…"

"That they are," Giulia agreed, suddenly feeling tired, head-achy.

"And I think you've had _way_ too long to overthink this," Caroline said, in her fair voice, her vulnerable exasperation making Giulia's lips twitch. If she ever wanted a cocktail of fiery passion, salty-sweet truth-bomb and well-meaning exasperation she looked to Caroline, who never failed to deliver. "Just - tell him about Fabian. I think Elijah can appreciate complicated relationships. Besides Zita, Fabian's the most important person in your life - I'll always be your best-friend; I'm a given, so I don't count myself!" Caroline half-laughed, as Giulia frowned, starting to interrupt. "You've built this incredible life for Zita, and…Fabian _should_ be a part of it, and that's…kind of fundamental to where you're at right now, and I think Elijah would need to know that… Maybe right now, the Fabian of it all…what you need is a great friend. Maybe someone to give a different perspective, with a thousand years' experience."

"Your perspective is always pretty on-point, Caroline," she said earnestly, with a tired smile. "You keep me sane."

"It's not a job for the faint-hearted," Caroline said, her expression deadpan, and Giulia smirked, nudging her.

"Now, are you done stressing? Because we do have plans for this weekend, and we promised lunch for everyone, so," Caroline prompted, tapping her watch significantly, and Giulia smiled, the monumental act of removing the silver-dagger suddenly reduced to an afterthought, by Caroline's healthy dose of perspective, in comparison to the promised delights of their weekend.

She had too many things to look forward to this weekend, and in her life in general, to sour things by worrying herself to distraction with questions that would answer themselves in due course anyway. She intended to enjoy every moment of this weekend, with her little girl and most of the people she adored best in the world, before everything changed again.

Giulia pulled the dagger out, cleaning it off on Elijah's ruined suit-jacket, and tucked it into her handbag; she pulled out a blood-bag and set up an intravenous transfusion, just as she had for his siblings and daughter. The transfusions helped reduce their bloodlust when the vampires gained consciousness; Giulia didn't want Elijah hurting himself trying to escape the witches' house to satiate his bloodlust - not that she truly worried he'd go on a murderous feeding-frenzy. She worried about his comfort, waking from complete desiccation.

Her heart stammered, after seeing Elijah for so long with the silver-dagger embedded in his sternum. He looked almost alien without it.

Whatever Caroline said to settle her nerves, Elijah had been a tremendous influence on her life, for as short a time as he had been part of it; they had been together a fraction of the time Giulia had had Elijah desiccated in her safekeeping.

As they left the attic and gathered the dogs, Caroline quietly asked after Fabian; had Giulia heard from him recently? How were his debilitating migraines?

"If you're some insane mystery-spot for his visions, and you stop him being in pain…and you love each other so much, and hate being apart…why can't he come live with you again?" Caroline implored, sighing, miserable on Giulia's behalf. Caroline knew a little about seemingly impossible relationships: she and Tyler had dated for nearly a year, a vampire and a werewolf, dating despite the dangers and the legacy of hatred and prejudice between their species. At least it was something as normal as their college choices that had broken them up: they remained perfectly amicable, though Tyler didn't return to Mystic Falls nearly as much as they would've wanted.

Still - more Bourbon Street lost weekends for them!

"No matter how much he loves me, Fabian would never give up _fromage_ for me, and I don't blame him," Giulia said lightly, her lips twitching, as they reached the front-door and exited the house, into the sunshine. It already promised to be a glorious day; early June was one of her favourite times of year, before the humidity started to wreak havoc, and the birdsong was beautiful in the dusk after a prolonged evening. Caroline rolled her eyes, climbing into the _Jeep_ ; settling the dogs into the back, Giulia yawned widely, rolling her shoulders before climbing into the passenger-seat. Caroline put the car in Reverse and started to pull away from the house, adjusting the stereo and trying to continue the conversation about Fabian, while Giulia had nowhere to escape to. Giulia frowned, agitated, feeling like she was missing something crucial, rubbing her arm, and glancing around the car.

"I just think -"

"STOP THE CAR!" Gasping in horror, she flung the door wide as Caroline stamped on the brake, yelling, startled, as Giulia tried to lurch from her seat, gave a strangled yelp, half-garrotted by her seatbelt, untangled herself, and raced back to the house, Caroline's giggles echoing in her ears, berating herself. " _Four years!_ "

Zita was four years old.

Perfectly long enough not to forget her, too wrapped up in a conversation with Caroline.

Her cheeks flushed, she followed the sound of giggles around the house, through Finn's meticulously-tended parterres overflowing with herbs and lush plants, under the honeysuckle arbour, and down the gentle sloping hill tall with grass and wildflowers, toward the sun-dappled gurgling creek.

She smiled, her heart thumping back to its regular pace, striding to the battered old oak leaning precariously over the water, where a tyre-swing had been strung up, and on which Zita was giggling madly, Finn gently pushing her every time she swung like a pendulum, her molasses curls flying, her face alight with joy.

Giulia memorised the scene, never wanting to forget her daughter's pure happiness.

Hearing her approach, Finn took his eyes off Zita for a half-beat, his lips twitched into a knowing smile.

"May I have my daughter back, please?" she asked, laughing, and Zita's laughter gurgled almost drunkenly as Finn caught the swing and held on, leaving Zita a little cross-eyed and dizzy as the swing twisted and spun, winding down like a drunken top.

"Hi, _Mamma_!" Zita giggled, taking a step and pitching sideways, still cross-eyed and dizzy. Giulia chuckled, scooping her up as Zita staggered unsteadily.

"Hi, love," Giulia sighed, hoisting her up onto her hip. "Give Finn a kiss goodbye." Zita obliged, clasping Finn's hollow cheeks in her tiny dimpled hands, peppering his lips with kisses. Finn gave her a quiet goodbye, and escorted them as far as the honeysuckle arbour, to pause and start tending the plants he looked after so tenderly.

"When can we come over to play again?" Zita asked.

"Soon," Giulia promised. "Not this weekend, though. Did you give Lagertha the DVD?"

"Mm-hmm. She says she's going to wait until she can watch it with me. But I think it's because she and Isak fight over the remote a lot, except he's nice to me," Zita said candidly, her adorable lisp making Giulia smile as Zita cuddled up to her, yawning into her shoulder as Giulia carried her back around the house to the car, where Caroline was wiping tears of laughter from her cheeks.

Giulia buckled her daughter into her car-seat, Caroline shuddering with suppressed laughter as she drove them to the Boarding House, to join a line of cars and RVs waiting to get onto the Salvatore property. The five camping-sites had now opened for guests of the vintage festival to start arriving, claiming their pitches, vendors setting up stalls, pop-up restaurants, salons, speakeasies and dance-halls, bands already rehearsing before their allotted performances.

It was going to be a wonderful weekend.

The calm before the storm.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Another chapter for you. Let me know what you think!


	3. To the Codfish Ball

**A.N.** : Pick yourselves off the floor, I didn't mean to shock you! An update! I know, it's been _aaaaages_. I can't account for it, I'm afraid: I've been obsessed recently with _The Limehouse Golem_ , _How I Live Now_ , _Incredibles II_ , _The Impossible_ (for Tom Holland fans it is _essential_! Take your makeup off before watching, and don't watch when you're hormonal, like I did!), and _Dark Skye_ by Kresley Cole.

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _03_

 _To the Codfish Ball_

* * *

For some, time passed slowly; a minute seemed an eternity. For others, there was never enough… Giulia had experienced both phenomena over the last decade. Today, time had stood still, breathless and delighted.

It was the sound of children laughing, the music playing, the crisp warmth of early-June gently baking fresh green grass, the gentle breeze perfumed by flowers overflowing the walled gardens of the Boarding House, the wildflowers in the meadows turned into campsites for the weekend. The scent of lunch being prepared; the good-natured arguments of Caroline and Jesse putting up their tent for the long-weekend in the pitch beside Giulia's beloved sapphire _Beetle_ and renovated teardrop trailer, the awning already raised, preparing the promised meal for those nearest and dearest to her. The breeze played with her headscarf, tied to conceal her rollers setting her curls for the weekend, the sun beating through her sharp dark high-waisted trousers, and she smiled as little children wheedled past with a soccer-ball, giggling; Zita, her curls bouncing, hand-in-hand with Bonnie's tiny, toddling Penelope, her natural hair framing her dimpled face, a pink pacifier in her mouth, while strawberry-blonde mini-me Ruth paused to push her hair out of her face, wave at her daddy, and let Jenna snap another among thousands of photographs, before dashing off after the littler girls.

She could hear one of the big bands rehearsing on the main stage, the chatter of people setting up their accommodation for the weekend, some already set up and sitting back enjoying the sunshine, sharing a chilled drink, already dressed up for the vintage festival. The sense of tranquillity, of anticipated fun, made her smile as she prepared loaded quesadillas, setting out bowls of blue corn tortillas and homemade queso, salsa picante and frijoles, her famous chilli heating through on the tiny stove in the back of the teardrop, grilled corn wrapped in tinfoil made up Mexican street-food style, her 1940s playlist on, consciously not checking her phone. Instead, she focused the camera on Zita, playing so prettily with Penelope and Ruth, whose little brother J.D. was helping his dad Ric put up their tent while Jenna emptied bags of ice into the Igloo that had been given to them as a wedding-present. It had been taken on every camping trip, every tailback party, every family barbecue: Today it was stocked with _Coronas_ , popsicles and frozen juice-boxes for the kids. The days of Ric's heavy consumption of bourbon, of Jenna's taste for fruity white wines, of Giulia's indulgence, were far behind them.

It was nearly ten years since Jenna and Ric's wedding; they had two gorgeous children to show for it, J.D. going into first-grade in August, Ruth…a brave little warrior-child, eight years old, her hearing deteriorating to the point where she might very soon be medically diagnosed as deaf, unless the last-hope surgeries worked. A beautiful little girl, truly a joy to have at Giulia's house once a fortnight so her parents could have guilt-free date-night.

Ten years… It didn't feel like it. Sometimes it seemed like yesterday she had first held the tiny, perfect Zita in her arms, time snatched away from them; but it had been an age since she had helped Jenna prepare for her surprise wedding to Ric… Her short time with Elijah felt like a lifetime ago. Because it was.

As she set out cups for the kids, she paused to watch the girls play. Without effort, children lived in the moment. J.D. joined them, scooping up tiny Penelope when she stumbled over the soccer-ball, before hawk-eyed Bonnie could pull herself from her chair, belly swollen like a basket-ball. And off they went, the little girls swarming after J.D. like bumblebees, giggling, Penelope's pacifier lost in the grass, her dainty white baby-teeth glittering in the sunshine, her tumble completely forgotten.

 _Regression to the mean_ … All things had to come to an end. The wheel was forever turning… She never wanted to take it for granted that she was here, watching her daughter laughing and playing.

"Wish I could get up and down like that," Bonnie sighed, adjusting her sunglasses, her hand rubbing her belly absently as she watched her daughter.

"It'd be a louder thump if you fell, for sure," Giulia murmured, handing Bonnie a cup of lemonade. With the ETA of the Unborn only weeks away, Bonnie had been ordered by her doctor to take it easy. Not bedrest, but they wanted Bonnie to slow down. Given the complicated and tragic nature of her previous pregnancies, they were all on high-alert as her due-date crept closer. And with the threatened heatwave, delivery-day couldn't come soon enough for Bonnie, already uncomfortable in the early-June heat. Bonnie laughed, trying to punt the back of Giulia's knee with her foot. "How's the Unborn today?"

"Craving queso," Bonnie grinned behind her shades.

"Baby's wish is our command," Caroline beamed, handing over the tortilla chips. She was the best auntie anyone could ever desire for her kids; the best godmother. She was tirelessly joyful; and had saved Giulia from total psychotic meltdowns in the early months of Zita's life.

No number of PhDs could prepare anyone for motherhood.

"And where's Glam Gram, anyway?" Giulia asked, glancing past Bonnie at Sheila's RV.

"You know, I think she went to quality-control the pop-up bars," Bonnie said, rolling her eyes. "You'll hear the clink of ice-cubes before you see her walking back."

"Hey, Sheila looks great, she must be doing something right."

"Yeah, witchcraft!" Bonnie laughed, and Giulia shuddered as she watched Bonnie's belly _move_ , the Unborn wriggling around. Caroline beamed as Bonnie grabbed her hand, placing it against her belly. Giulia could hear the baby's heartbeat just as Caroline could; it was them who…heard the babies' heartbeats falter the other times, the ones who rushed Bonnie to ER when something didn't _smell_ right, Bonnie's body's way of warning that a seizure was about to strike. Eclampsia had almost killed Bonnie, and had taken her first baby; the following two pregnancies had ended at twenty-one and twenty-six weeks, the babies' hearts stopping. Penelope was a treasure. The Unborn was the second attempt after Penelope's birth to carry a pregnancy to term.

They were all waiting with baited breath, refusing to give in to the dread that Bonnie might lose this one, too. After five failed pregnancies and one miracle, Bonnie had come too far, the both of them had come too far. But as Sheila said…Mother Nature had a way of getting what it wanted; what would be, would be.

Sometimes Bonnie blamed her miscarriages on what happened in New Orleans, nature's way of punishing her. She was no longer a witch; Sheila had seen to that, and Giulia had to believe that was enough punishment. Still…Bonnie continued to grieve her mistakes, and thanked Giulia and Tyler almost every day for fighting so tenaciously for her: It was Tyler, her fellow undergrad at Tulane, who had noticed something was wrong when Bonnie fell into the wrong crowd of witches - he had called Sheila, who in turn had unleashed Giulia.

Bonnie's experiences were a constant reminder to everyone else that nothing was guaranteed, that they _had_ to stop and smell the roses, take nothing for granted. Treasure every breath they took, every heartbeat.

"You know, that still freaks me out," Giulia said, shivering again as the Unborn kicked. She could practically see toe-prints. Bonnie grimaced.

"This one's definitely a mover," Bonnie smiled fondly. "I keep having to put bags of frozen-peas on my belly to get Baby to cool it with the tap-dancing!" Caroline rubbed Bonnie's belly fondly, her expression wistful; what she wouldn't give to be tortured by an infant turning somersaults and doing the cha-cha against her ribs. They were all getting older, and it was only becoming more and more evident how much Caroline was missing out on. Caroline could only contour her face so much to make herself look older. Marriage and motherhood, the two things Caroline had always craved as a little girl, were denied her. She had a companion in Jesse but Giulia didn't envision that turning into anything more than a devoted, _beneficial_ friendship - and because of what they both were, neither did they.

Caroline craved _love_ , and she had so much of it to give.

She was starting to learn how to sublimate and content herself with being the favourite auntie. But it was hard, and Giulia noticed her smiles faltering. But she was Caroline Forbes, and she had borrowed her mantra from Scarlett, _Tomorrow is another day_.

"Hey! Look who's here!" Bonnie cooed, and they laughed and waved at Jeremy and Ashlyn, both in full vintage regalia, carrying chairs and iceboxes and grinning, and Matt, pushing the vintage Silver Cross pram Giulia had lent him for the occasion.

"Guess today's not one of Elena's good days," Caroline murmured despondently, catching Giulia's eye. She shrugged.

"She was all excited to come, last time I called and talked to her," Giulia murmured. She had maintained a strong friendship with Matt ever since he had become her lodger at the Boarding House, along with Rose, who had become his best-friend, mentor, tutor and big-sister. Matt had lived rent-free at the Boarding House his senior year of high-school and all through college, up until he was twenty-four, all through the renovation of the Boarding House; Giulia had made him save his money, and with it he had bought his small studio apartment downtown, in Ric's old building, independent of Elena, who couldn't bear to visit him at the Boarding House, with all its ghosts. Sometime during their undergraduate studies at Whitmore College, her father's alma mater, Elena had opened herself up to other people again, after a scary Bella-esque senior-year at Mystic Falls High School, and embraced a rekindled relationship with Matt, who was no Stefan, but who was steady and earnest and hard-working.

Stefan was gone, and Matt was always there; and Elena moved in with him, and they got married, quietly, in a backyard ceremony at the Gilbert house Jeremy had bought Elena out of because she couldn't handle the ghosts there, either, with Ric officiating and Ruth and Zita as her flower-girls, Bonnie her matron-of-honour. Caroline had planned the wedding; Giulia had catered, and Damon had sent first-class tickets anywhere in the world in lieu of showing up and upturning the whole thing. Mrs Donovan hadn't shown up until over a month later, contrite but just as much of a mess as always: Elena had invited her but Matt hadn't seen his mom since he banished her from his life their junior-year of high-school, and she had never met her grandson. They had rarely seen Elena as happy as on her wedding-day, and on the day she announced she was expecting a baby.

They had grown up together, the quartet - her, Caroline, Bonnie and Elena; but over the last ten years, while her relationship with Elena was abandoned, a true and abiding bond had cemented between her and Matt, and it was him she called to chat with - and check on - and _he_ had been the one to ask her to be one of Grayson's two godmothers; Giulia, and Rose. Tyler was going to be the cool, level-headed, fun but geographically-distant godfather; Uncle Jeremy had already filled Grayson's nursery with artwork, and still-unofficial Aunt Ash was a godsend with natural baby remedies and free babysitting. Matt usually dropped Grayson off at their house, rather than have Ash stop at the apartment; because Elena was still there, just disinterested in taking care of her son.

If no-one knew, they wouldn't notice; but Matt had burst into tears at Giulia's house a few times, cradling infant Grayson, overwhelmed, not just with taking care of a newborn-baby but struggling to cope with Elena, whose 'baby-blues' hadn't lifted, who slept most of the time, and who struggled with guilt and feelings of inadequacy, all perfectly normal for a new mother, as Giulia had experienced. But Matt had been keeping an eye on his wife; she wouldn't go to a doctor, and had gotten angry and defensive at Matt for gently suggesting she might need some help. He had asked her to just talk to Jenna, who had her own practice and helped many women like Elena, but Elena wouldn't hear it, and Matt was too busy being a working-father to be able to press the issue.

The last she had heard, Elena still couldn't bear to hold her son, would barely even look at him.

She had rare days when she seemed like her old self again, the pre-labour Elena excited to be a mother, ready to embrace everything that meant.

Sometimes, now, Elena reminded Giulia of Isobel.

And that was scary. Isobel had suppressed her emotions as a new vampire out of buyer's remorse; because of it, she hadn't been around for the daughter she gave away, when Elena needed Isobel's protection.

Today was a rare outing for Matt, and as the day passed the familiar lines of tension in his face dissolved into relaxed grins. It helped that he was surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than to cuddle and coo over Grayson, giving him all the attention and love his mother couldn't bring herself to give him; they all knew today was a special occasion and a treat for Matt, to be able to have a few beers and mingle with adults outside of a work-setting, in the fresh air and sunshine. They didn't ask where Elena was; they just cocooned Matt and Grayson in their friendship, their love, the way they always did. Caroline avidly took photographs and indulged in cuddles with Gray, who knew Giulia by sight and cooed and gurgled and showed off the new trick he had learned - _smiling_. He beamed at Giulia from Caroline's lap and giggled when she smooched raspberries and kisses on his cheeks, threatening to eat him up.

That first evening was relaxed, before the festival officially began, having a lazy meal with her friends, drinking beer and margaritas and playing soccer with the kids and meandering to the main arena to watch some of the bands rehearse for their slots over the weekend. A huge temporary dancefloor had been set up right in front of the now-static covered bandstand, and when she wasn't dancing along to the bands, Zita sat at the edge of the dancefloor, sucking her thumb and watching the musicians with half-lidded eyes, just absorbing everything she heard. Giulia often wondered how Zita _heard_ the world; she knew her own hearing brought out the extraordinary in the inane.

They wandered past the early arrivals for the vintage car show, including all of Giulia's cars - the ones that were restored to her satisfaction - every one of them sparkling, freshly waxed and polished, and much-coveted by collectors and restorers and avid fans and nine-year-old boys. Cara had supplied half her collection of rare vintage cars for the occasion, driving down for the event in convoy with Vera, Chocolat and Aljaž, who was leading a lot of the dance lessons over the weekend alongside Vera.

Vendors were already setting up ready for the morning, arranging displays of everything from vintage clothes-patterns to gramophones, vintage clothing and jewellery and furniture. A vintage magazine had a stall where they were selling subscriptions but they had also sent a photographer and blogger to document the weekend, as they had every year for the past three years. There were mobile salons setting girls' hair into victory-rolls; and Giulia beamed when she saw Victoire setting up her small salon, where a vintage makeover was offered with Prohibition cocktails - one of Kol's bartenders was helping out.

They tried not to talk shop, but it was impossible not to, because the cosmetics line was Victoire's baby and Giulia's passion - and investment - and Giulia thrummed with pride when Victoire set out the newly-rebranded cosmetics she had created, bullet lipsticks and dainty compacts of crème and powder blush and delicate setting powders with tiny puffs, solid cake mascara and cream, a limited collection of legitimate vintage eyeshadow powders, all in beautiful vintage-inspired packaging, and a collection of blotting papers and luxurious faux-hair brushes and powder-puffs, and a cleanser and toner in recyclable glass bottles that Giulia now used religiously. Everything Victoire made was vegan, recyclable and organic, not a plastic tube in sight, but she had still been uncertain about 'going public' with her small cosmetics line, until Giulia managed to get the soft plum-coloured lipstick bullet onto the set of a seductive, ultra-glam Prohibition-era TV show that was blowing up on a _Downton Abbey_ scale. The plum noire lipstick was used as a prop, the African-American actress, in character, putting on her makeup and giving a monologue to her mirror - the camera - before the scene melted to her onstage in a speakeasy, singing an extraordinary rendition of _St Louis Blues_ with a dirty trumpet that sent shivers down her spine.

Now, high-end boutiques in Los Angeles, Manhattan and Miami, London, Paris and Milan stocked Victoire's cosmetics, she was sold exclusively in Zara's boutique in the French Quarter, and Hollywood had come a-knockin' big-time for period movies - and red-carpet season; a Rita Hayworth biopic, an Oscar-nominated musical, a _Marvel_ TV show set in the Forties and a tongue-in-cheek noire-glamour Agatha Christie _Netflix_ original-series, as well as several BBC period-dramas, and even delighted over by a quirky vintage-loving character in a film based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Victoire had no regrets; she was the artist, Giulia the businesswoman whose job it was to protect and promote the brand. Victoire enjoyed weekends like this, where she got to show people on a personal level what to do with her cosmetics to achieve what they wanted; Giulia was the gentle nudge Victoire had needed to allow others to indulge in her passion. Victoire's cosmetics was one in many investments Giulia had wisely made over the last decade to ensure her financial future; she was going to live immeasurably, she had to take precautions. Plus, she had Zita and her descendants to think about.

Victoire had set up her little salon, giving vintage makeovers from the Twenties to the Fifties, alongside a cocktail of choice, and the chance to cuddle one of her French bulldogs, whom she bred from, conscientiously, because they were her babies. As Giulia had her makeup refreshed and sipped a _Scofflaw_ , stroking the tulip ears of slow, old Mabel, she and Victoire spoke quietly in French and discussed Françoise-Amélie and her decision _not_ to return to the Vieux Carré, putting an end to the century-long cycle of vampire civil-wars and stability with the charismatic Marcel Gerard, all the while Zita played in the grass with the dogs and one of the hairdressers asked Giulia how she had set her daughter's perfect Shirley Temple curls.

She had already promised to return to Victoire's on Saturday evening before the Candlelight Cabaret so she could film a live _YouTube_ tutorial for soft, era-appropriate flapper makeup, and slipped away to meander amongst the pop-up boutiques and gazebos where different bands were already playing, making use of the space and a captive audience even if their slots weren't officially booked until ten a.m. Saturday morning onwards.

Zita spotted Carol Lockwood in one of the pop-up restaurants - Cara's retro diner, where she was serving luxury hotdogs, fresh French-fries, onion rings and deluxe grilled-cheese sandwiches with milkshakes and old-fashioned sundaes, floats and splits, Elvis playing from the jukebox and some of Chocolat's 1950s outfits on display for purchase, directing people to Chocolat's pop-up atelier where he was selling vintage-reproduction lingerie as well as eveningwear. Carol was resplendent in meticulously-researched late-1940s eveningwear, sipping a hard milkshake and treating her nephew to a hot-dog and onion-rings.

"Giulia, honey, hi!" Carol beamed, her eyes twinkling, as Giulia bent to kiss her cheeks. With Tyler several states away and dead set against ever reproducing, her brother-in-law Mason's only child was the closest thing Carol was likely to get to a grandson; Giulia could say Carol spoiled him, but Spencer was a lovely kid, and completely unspoiled. Giulia was his favourite babysitter and unofficial godmother and she knew a lot of the secrets his mother didn't want anyone to know.

Some of those secrets, everybody knew. Especially Mason.

"Hi, Zita!" Spencer beamed, giving her a hug, and half an onion-ring. Spencer spent more time at Giulia's house than his own; and Giulia was happy with that, if not for the fact it meant that sometimes, Hayley remembered she actually did have a kid, and brought an attitude with her when she came to reclaim her son - as if Giulia was keeping him against his will, or muscling her way in as Spencer's new mommy. Like Matilda, like Matt Donovan, Spencer was learning to look after himself; and if not for the kind, attentive dad he worshipped and Giulia, who noticed everything and could coax him to spill the secrets Hayley tried to hide from Mason…Spencer would've learned far too early that he could only rely on himself. If not for Mason, Spencer would've been screwed before he ever stood a chance: Perhaps it was the lycanthropy or Liz's mentoring in the Sheriff's Department, but Mason had matured beautifully, settling into small-town life, essential and organic as if he had always been part of the Department. He was one of those laidback, steady guys who you knew would always have your back - a Dan Connor kind of father-figure and friend. His absence this afternoon was noted; so was Hayley's.

"Where's Hayley?" Giulia murmured, on the pretext of taking a sip of Carol's hard milkshake as she crouched down beside her chair. Last year the whole Lockwood family had turned up - Tyler included, it had been Carol's special birthday - and it was one of the few times Giulia could say she had enjoyed Hayley's company. But she had been in high spirits then; she and Mason had been going through one of their sickeningly good patches. There were a lot of bad ones.

"I guess she made other plans," Carol said meaningfully, and Giulia narrowed her eyes.

"You've gotta be _kidding_ me," she scoffed in disbelief, sounding so much like Damon it made her want to call him. She had been made aware of the fact that Hayley had previously used _her_ as her beard; she left Spencer with Giulia and went off to meet her boyfriends, and told Mason she had been out with their son. "What is she _doing_?" She stroked Spence's hair and sighed, leaning over to plaster kisses all over him. It wasn't like Spencer didn't _know_ : Hayley had bullied him into not telling when he caught her with her boyfriend at the house. Giulia thought Hayley was _trying_ to get caught. When things were good between Mason and Hayley, things were very good; the sex was insane.

When things were _bad_ …

And the bad had been escalating recently.

Spencer spent a lot of time with Giulia and Zita, watching old movies and playing catch and pretending that his mother's temper didn't frighten him, that she hadn't bruised him before, and that he hadn't confessed to Giulia that he wished he could stay with her. He'd once told Giulia, after a long, exhausted night of crying when he had finally had a little breakdown over Hayley shattering a glass a foot from his head, that he sometimes wished Giulia and Mason were married. Then Giulia would be his mom and Zita his sister, and they would all be happy together.

He told Giulia that his dad was always happier when they were all together, when Mason stopped by at Giulia's and had dinner with her and their kids, and more often than not, Enzo too. They _were_ happy; they _did_ have fun together. Every week, Mason and Giulia tried to go on a punishingly-long run together, to decompress, and to figure some things out; mostly, Mason talked, about Hayley, about his marriage, but mostly about Spencer. He was a good dad, and worried about his kid.

"Are you going to have fun with us this weekend?"

"Are you gonna make me dance?" Spence asked dubiously.

"I might not; Zita will, won't you Zita?" she chuckled, and Zita grinned impishly around another onion-ring. She loved dancing - especially with Spencer. She was _smitten_. Giulia grabbed the vibrant-eyed little boy, plastering him with more kisses. "You're just getting far too handsome."

"Just like his father," Carol smiled fondly.

"Did Aunt Carol tell you that there's going to be a flight display of restored monoplanes tomorrow?" Giulia asked, and Spencer's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"They're going to land in the meadow and you can go and climb in, if you want," Giulia smiled. "Have you got your bomber jacket and goggles?" Carol must have bought him the reproduction World War II Army uniform he proudly wore, jaunty hat included. She doubted Hayley knew Spencer had moved on from _How to Train Your Dragon_ to _Avengers_ two years ago.

"Of course he does," Carol smiled. Captain America was Spence's second-favourite hero (his dad being the first) and he had adopted the Steve Rogers aesthetic, bomber-jacket, combed hair, manners and all. If people said the _Avengers_ movies were only about insane CGI and explosions, they obviously didn't realise the examples the likes of Steve Rogers were setting to shy, sad, impressionable kids like Spencer.

Mason only had so long before his son started bugging him for a motorcycle. Giulia pitied the girls he would be going to school with; they'd have no chance against his pretty eyes, easy charm and kind, patient nature.

"Then we'll get some great pictures to show your dad."

"He said he might come by tomorrow afternoon, before he goes to work," Spencer said, his entire face lighting up. He was definitely his daddy's boy. He minded Hayley, but he adored his dad.

"Do you think I could get _him_ to dance?" Giulia asked, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, and Spencer laughed and shook his head. " _No_?"

"No!"

"I guess maybe he should just stick to surfing." Spence laughed, and Giulia smiled when he offered her some of his hotdog. "Oh my god, that's good. Cara can cook! Who knew?!"

It was a recent discovery; years ago when Giulia had been living in Paris, Cara had shown up. Vera was off with a new lover, leaving Cara without anyone to talk to at two a.m., and despondent because Ashlyn was away at college - with _Jeremy_. Cara had signed up at _Le Cordon Bleu_ for something to do, and fallen in love with cooking. But she was a boisterous extrovert and _Michelin_ -star cuisine was not her style; her vintage-inspired pop-up diners had been featured on blogs and even the _New York Times_ but this was the first year she had set up at the vintage-festival. Vera's affair had ended but Cara's discovery of food had turned into an abiding romance; the pop-up diners were strictly Cara's thing. Vera was helping Chocolat with the atelier and would be doing a demonstration of classical ballroom tomorrow night with Aljaž, as Giulia would on Sunday. Chocolat had made her costumes, as he did every year.

"This is the one I chose," Spence smiled, showing Giulia the menu, and she recognised Jeremy's style in the sketched depictions of the hotdogs on offer. It wasn't a surprise that Jeremy had been involved; he had been friends with Cara for years, ever since his relationship with Ashlyn cemented into something wonderful and exhilarating. While Elena had stuck close to home, going to Whitmore, marrying her high-school sweetheart, Jeremy had explored the world - with Ashlyn, and sometimes, with Cara tagging along too.

"'The Welsh Dog; a beef hotdog on a potato bun with beer-cheese sauce and caramelised onions'," Giulia read, " _Yum_!"

"Interesting that Cara's serving _sausages_ , I thought she had an aversion," a velvety voice said, and as Zita chirped, " _Cheeky monkey!_ " delightedly in greeting, Giulia grinned, glancing over her shoulder.

"Well, hello, sailor!" she grinned. "Where've you been?"

"With Kol, getting deliciously tipsy on your top-shelf gin and bourbon," Enzo grinned devilishly, and Giulia hummed and laughed and threw herself into his arms for a tight hug. He was dressed in his vintage-festival finest, which meant an authentic wool World War II Royal Navy uniform. And damn, if he didn't look _good_.

"I hope you left some for Carol," she chided, smiling shyly in his arms. He never let go too quickly. There were few boundaries with Enzo; he was unhinged, fun and _intensely_ loyal to Giulia. Enzo _was_ intensity. When Matt had felt something wasn't quite _right_ at Whitmore, Giulia had visited, eradicating the Augustine Society over a long-weekend; she had freed Enzo.

What followed was a confusing journey of violence, devastating vulnerability, heart-breaking intimacy and a fierce, intense sexual relationship. She still didn't think there had been anything truly _romantic_ between them; but there was an intense attraction and they had come out the other side of an intense six months as fiercely devoted platonic companions, fierce friends, something almost like a brother-sister bond between them. She was his _friend_ and Enzo continued to talk to her when he needed to, her Psychology PhD put to good use; he knew _he_ had someone to talk to at two a.m. Enzo, though violent and unpredictable, had more mental fortitude than anyone Giulia knew; escaping Augustine was all he needed, and he had set about reclaiming a full life for himself, though he confessed to still feeling adrift, without purpose beyond watching Zita grow up and appreciating that he was privileged to be allowed to do so.

Spencer had once asked about Enzo, who had been lurking about the house after a particularly bad lapse, and to get him to understand she had explained Enzo was sort of like the Winter Soldier. Pain had conditioned him to react to things a certain way. He wasn't inherently evil or even bad, but he had been used poorly.

It was the times like that weekend that she remembered she had a predilection for dark-eyed dangerous men with rich accents, immaculate charm and hidden tenderness.

Sometimes she remembered Elijah, and his werewolf-venom hallucinations, his _anguish_ …

And Fabian. Fabian whom she loved, but wouldn't let her stay by his side, who needed her to stop the debilitating, skull-shattering, brain-melting migraines that accompanied his visions. He needed those visions more than he wanted her; and they both knew he wouldn't survive them. She was the woman he had married, the woman he loved, the woman who had given him peace in a lifetime of pain; she was the woman he would widow.

Even her marriage felt like a love-affair now, but it hadn't started out that way. She had thought, perhaps naïvely, that she had found a partner with whom to share the adventures of her life. And he might have been that man, if not for the choices he had made, decisions that had devastating implications beyond their marriage.

Elijah, Enzo, Fabian. Three dark, charming, devastating men she had embraced into her life.

She definitely had a type.

Whatever might have been with Elijah had been cut short, abruptly and brutally; and he had been put into a mystical coma believing she was dead. Her relationship with Enzo had progressed naturally from something fierce and dangerous to something intimate and more like an intense sibling friendship. Her marriage to Fabian, intoxicating and stimulating, was far from perfect, and confusing, devastating… _disappointing_.

Of the three men she had been in moderate-to-serious relationships with - Elijah, Enzo and Fabian - it was her relationship with Enzo that had so far stood the test of time, of _life_. They weren't _together_ , but they were always there for each other. They were friends. They were _family_.

When Giulia had brought Zita home, without Fabian, Enzo had taken one look at Zita's tiny petal lips and tiny fingers unfurling like lazy starfish and fallen completely and irrevocably in love. She now had the most vicious, most caring guard-dog/nanny for life.

For a little while, Giulia and Enzo had been fiercely, intensely, dangerously together; if she wasn't a stronger woman Giulia might have gotten lost in him. But as the years had passed, and she resisted his pull and he responded to her coaxing, he had gentled. His passion for vengeance had become a passion to _live_ , to protect, to adore. He was _devoted_ to Zita. And to Giulia; but she didn't take advantage. _Wouldn't_ , though it would have been so easy to dispatch him to kill anyone she wanted. Because he would. Without question. And that was a terrifying power to have over someone else.

"Lovely to see you, as always, Mrs Lockwood," Enzo said, dipping to kiss the back of Carol's gloved hand.

"Enzo. Always so charming," Carol beamed, smitten as ever.

"Will you save me a dance later?" he asked her, smiling.

"Only if Giulia is willing to share you," Carol laughed. Enzo missed the dance-halls of the Forties; they _loved_ dancing together. She and Enzo had taught Zita and Spencer how to swing-dance and jive and do the Charleston. He was a big _Avengers_ acolyte but Spencer would curl up with blankets and cuddle while they watched old Fred Astaire movies, where Astaire was charming and mesmerising and the women were _elegant_.

"Not a chance," Giulia grinned, and Carol chuckled. Giulia was very fortunate, and acknowledged that she was, that her relationship with Enzo had grown organically into a friendship as intense and loyal as it was; and just like with Enzo, her relationship with her childhood friend and former-boyfriend Tyler had grown, too. Stronger, more intimate, non-romantic but involved and loyal, even separated geographically as they were. She was very fortunate in their friendship.

One of the old barns had been renovated years ago, and for the festival had been turned into a 1940s dance-hall; though no official programmes had been booked for the night, someone had set up an iPod over the stereo system and swing music drew a small crowd of dancers and spectators having a drink where the bar had already tapped a few kegs and were pouring vintage cocktails for the likes of Mrs Lockwood and Jenna, who had always loved the Decades Dances at Mystic Falls High School. Those days were behind them, but this was even better!

Giulia spent the whole night in the barn, in her victory rolls and nautical-inspired 1940s outfit, tirelessly swing-dancing with Enzo, grinning and laughing, her stomach-muscles aching from laughter as much as being flipped and flung about by Enzo, while Zita danced along beside them and cooed and coaxed Spencer to join her, her curls bouncing as she beamed. Slowly the others started to appear, the Saltzmans and Caroline with Jesse, Ashlyn and Jeremy towing a laughing, slightly inebriated Matt. They danced until it was late, and no-one felt the midnight chill in the air, in the stuffy barn full of people, music blasting, almost drowned out by laughter, and Giulia grinned and felt exhilarated. Impromptu nights were often the best, and tonight was definitely one of them, sipping cocktails and flashing her vintage-inspired underwear as she danced and flipped and twirled and laughed, cuddling with Zita and applauding the other dancers before being stolen away onto the dancefloor again, dancing with Caroline and then Ric, and briefly wishing that Tyler was here as she danced with pretty-eyed young Spencer, who adored her. When they weren't dancing, Caroline and Mrs Lockwood and Liz, who arrived just after six o'clock, had their cameras out; Giulia was sure Caroline's camera was full of pictures of Zita cuddling Enzo so sweetly, as they had a rest and shared any icy _Coca-Cola_ with puppy Gallant cuddled in Zita's arms as she sucked her thumb and rested her head against Enzo's neck, his arms linked loosely around her as they watched the dancers.

If the kids were tired they didn't show it; they were probably pumped full of so much food and sugary drinks they'd be bouncing around for hours, but at least they were dancing it off, and the dogs had settled quietly under a small table, guarded by Zeus and cuddled by J.D., who wanted nothing more than a puppy of his own.

After Enzo cupped a hand over his mouth to whisper in Zita's ear, the music changed to 'To the Codfish Ball', and Giulia beamed and laughed and watched in surprise and wonder as her tiny girl danced Shirley Temple's dance in her sailor suit, with Enzo.

The song ended, Zita gave an uncertain grin and a wobbly bow, blushed hotly and ran for her mother, hiding her face.

"When did you learn that - and how did you keep it from me?" she asked, laughing, as she cuddled an out-of-breath, beaming Zita, blushing furiously at the applause from a stunned adult audience.

"Caroline's been helping us with the choreography; she missed her true calling as a drill-sergeant," Enzo chuckled, teasing Caroline by tweaking one of her immaculate curls, twirling Ruth around as J.D. and Spencer laughed and danced goofily, Ric danced with Mrs Lockwood and Jenna claimed Matt for a dance as Jeremy and Ashlyn carried a round of drinks over from the bar.

"You wily sons o' guns! Thank you, Jem," Giulia laughed, kissing Jeremy's cheek as he handed her a _Rob Roy_ complete with two cherries on the stalk and Enzo took a gulp of rich dark stout, clapping a hand on Jeremy's shoulder in thanks.

"Zita wanted to surprise you," Caroline beamed, sparkly-eyed.

"I _am_ surprised," Giulia said warmly, gazing down lovingly at her daughter's flushed face and bright eyes. "You were marvellous!" Zita beamed and hid her face, until Caroline started playing the video she had taken of Zita dancing, and she peeked up from Giulia's chest to watch.

There was no putting Zita to bed early tonight, not after her dance and the rush of adrenaline that accompanied it; and not with Enzo running around with her on his shoulders in the moonlight, holding hands, her laughter carrying on the gentle breeze as small children and smaller dogs leapt and gambolled around him, Zeus grumbling by Giulia's side at their lack of decorum. Enzo had spent so long alone that he loved nothing more than the sound of children laughing, of long lazy nights with a bottle of wine and good music and conversation. He wasn't in torment anymore; he lived, Giulia thought, to teach others what loyalty meant, what it truly meant to live in the moment, to enjoy the people in his life. Enzo lived conscientiously; but woe betide anyone who threatened his family.

"Where've they disappeared to?" Caroline asked, frowning in the moonlight, and stumbling slightly after a few strong Manhattans; there were spotlights set up to light the way to the campsites, but for courtesy's sake they were turned off after midnight.

"I can guess," Giulia said, chuckling softly. And her guesses were usually pretty accurate; she and Dumbledore had that in common. Also, when they messed up, it was epic. It wasn't hard to find Enzo, though; at Cara's diner, with Gallant and Tisiphone wriggling all over his feet and Zita smiling tiredly and cuddled in his lap, he sat at a tiny table with a Knickerbocker Glory in front of him. It was an old-fashioned British treat of fresh fruit, ice-cream, bits of meringue, fruit-syrup, with a squirt of whipped-cream, chopped nuts and a cherry on top, a wafer sticking out.

"She's never going to sleep," Caroline sighed, shaking her head, but smiling warmly. Whatever their personal feelings toward Enzo, no-one could deny that he wouldn't move heaven and earth for Zita, and Caroline had her camera out taking photographs of Enzo and Zita cuddling as they shared a sundae, and Giulia went and ordered cherries jubilee from Cara, who was grinning and full of energy as ever, and _engaged_ in her work. The diner made her _happy_. She carried a cherries jubilee for herself and a strawberry shortcake sundae for Caroline over to Enzo's little table, and sat chatting and laughing and teasing while Zita's eyelids got heavier, and she fell asleep cuddled in Enzo's arms.

Caroline drifted off when Jesse appeared to sweep her back to their tent, tipsy and horny, and they waved Caroline goodnight, chuckling, wondering how they were going to navigate the zippers and tent-flaps after a few drinks. Enzo gathered Zita carefully into his arms, Giulia corralled the dogs, and they made their way slowly to the Beetle, passing impromptu gatherings and parties and music that didn't wake Zita, and they talked quietly and suggested an aperitif before bed, and in the moonlight, Giulia stilled, trusting the feeling that made the fine hairs at the back of her neck prick up.

She glanced to the side, saw a stationery figure shrouded in shadows. The moonlight gleamed off his chestnut hair, sending spiky shadows from his eyelashes over high cheekbones. Hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, Stefan smiled hesitantly at her.

"Hello, Giulia."

* * *

 **Author's Note**

* * *

So, I think I need to address a few things here and now: _The Originals_. Um, _WHAT_? I'm still not past episode 10 but I have a good guess what happens. And I have _issues_ with Teen!Hope. Are the writers completely incapable of creating a character who is a normal teenager, and _owns_ their actions and has to reap the repercussions of their mistakes - they've really not given themselves any leeway for personal discovery and character-growth in _Legacies_ (which I will be avoiding like the Black Death because of what I've heard they've done to the Saltzman twins' characters and having the nerve to call Caroline an 'absentee' mother) because apparently Hope _knows it all_. Also she's already demonised the Saltzman twins as 'Mean Girls' - Ric is chill and Caroline is wonderful; yes, she had her issues before she turned, but it seems the writers are just dreaming up the worst-possible scenarios for these kids, just to have a story, you know? I think they've forgotten how to write _kids_ because they're so hung-up on them being _supernatural_. Watch _Teen Wolf_ ; there's some accurate representation of supernatural kids. Take some notes!And as for the school 'rules', not integrating with the locals - Caroline knows how hard it is to fit in, regardless of species; she'd be _encouraging_ them to mingle and make friends, because a. that's the best way to get through their lives and everything they're put through, and b. that's the best way to learn how to stay under the radar!

The biggest issue I had was that everyone ignores the fact that Hope uses _magical_ _violence_ against her _mother_ to manipulate others into getting what she wants, which puts three factions and an entire city at each other's throats, when they've had peace for years, and she literally gave Klaus' enemies all they needed to abduct Hayley, ultimately leading to her death, and yet _Elijah_ is the one who is blamed for Hayley's death? To quote Negan, 'Well, excuse the shit out of my French', but how the fuck dare you? I know I've never been a Hayley fan but the last season - last two seasons, really - were awful for her characterisation and plot. And, I have to say, it was her choice to fling herself outdoors, she could've just pushed the other vampire and let Klaus do the rest, _he_ was there too. He defeated hundreds of Marcel's vampires in one tantrum, for god's sake!

Also, did the writers forget the triple-sacrifice blood-ritual necessary to subdue Klaus' werewolf side? Using a hot moonstone to burn their palms etc.? _WHAT_? I might've believed it if the miserable vampire-bitch had used Roman as the vampire sacrifice in a true 'Sun and Moon Curse'-esque ritual! _The road to redemption_ , and all that rubbish. It would give rise to a new doppelganger! Elena wouldn't be special anymore! If Roman isn't a classic case of brainwashing and emotional abuse, I don't know who is - well, Rebekah, for one, Elijah, for another.

Can we also appreciate that Elijah was helping people flee the rising Nazi regime?

And the fact Klaus sent him letters masquerading as Rebekah, to continue the charade that he hadn't killed her over jealousy that she'd chosen Stefan? I find it difficult to believe Elijah wouldn't see through those letters; he'd know his sister's handwriting and style of correspondence, you know?

Relaxed Elijah is just… _sigh_ … Antoinette was a wonderful character; I will take her or Gia over Hayley any day. They were both actually _good_ for Elijah, understood and respected his character flaws but coaxed him gently to being the best version of himself, they didn't judge him for, let's face it, having survived through eras that inspired _Game of Thrones_. I wish they'd allowed him to keep some of that new-Elijah even when he got his memories back, a bit more of a struggle, after learning how to put himself first for a change. Like, perhaps, _not_ killing himself for the sake of Klaus not dying alone, maybe?

I really wish they'd written Elijah as the uncle who was the first to embrace the idea of a child (which he was), gave the baby her name (which he did, because he believed so passionately in her), lost everything trying to protect (RIP Gia; you deserved better) - but who sees this doe-eyed brat who got her own mother killed through sheer negligence and stupidity, and turns into the stern, tell-it-like-it-is uncle because he sees the damage caused by everyone treating Hope like she's perfect and above reproach… He may not be _liked_ by Hope, but she'd damn well respect him and try to live up to his expectations.

In general I have a _thing_ about how Klaus' hybrid nature is written, and the fact that somehow Hope's genealogy incorporates witchcraft as her strongest trait, when only her grandmother was a witch (and if you could be a hybrid witch-werewolf, don't you think there would've been way more before Hope?), and she has two parents who are werewolves, with Klaus' vampirism overlying his genes. If they wanted an all-powerful witch baby, they should've brought Kol back as a witch early and…ooh. Ideas… Focus! (I should also note that I'm still not a Davina fan, either, sorry - but you'll be happy to learn that Cami is _finally_ growing on me! I've got more in store for her than Klaus-bait and inevitable death.)

You guys probably also remember that I've never been a Hayley fan. I'm afraid I just still can't move past the writers ignoring that Hayley set up a dozen of her friends, who trusted her, whom she helped, to be butchered, for a USB-stick. I know they altered her sob-story that she was kicked out of her adoptive-parents' home when she was 'thirteen'; but she never mentions the fact that she got someone killed because they were out in a boat and she was drunk and thought she wasn't, or are the writers ignoring _TVD_ canon again?

I don't want people to think I'm demonising Hayley just because I don't like her; I do like some things they've done with her in _TO_ , because she's pretty on it with Teen!Hope about consequences etc. I just don't find her very interesting or consistent. And from the perspective of my story, she became a mother and a wife very quickly before she really knew what was happening: Hayley has had ten years in Mystic Falls, where she was so afraid of her wonderful life with Mason and their son being ruined and being abandoned that she does what people like Hayley do; she messes everything up first so she's not the one hurt and abandoned, and then she runs, because she always has. By the time she reaches New Orleans, Hayley's in her thirties and realises what a mistake she made; but she also provides an excellent source of tension for Giulia and Tyler, who doesn't appear in this story but will be a big character in New Orleans - once again, the writers abused and neglected what could have been a very interesting character, he tried to battle his aggression with sports, was abused by his father, had a borderline-alcoholic mother, was a talented artist, and became a better person through his change and his friendship with Caroline. The writers mishandled Tyler _so badly_. I also hate that they wrote off Carol Lockwood's death, even Elijah wasn't respectful about what Klaus had done to Tyler - but then, the fact that Klaus killed their mother and lied about it for a millennium was never addressed in canon either, so what do you expect?

Also, Enzo was underutilised. So that's being fixed right now. I had a thought recently that I would've loved to see Enzo in New Orleans, reacting to Marcel trying to punish him over breaking one of his laws - and his disdain at another of Klaus' _many_ mantrums!


	4. The Lay of the Land

**A.N.** : Can I have endgame as Stefan and Rebekah being human and having a family together? I think - I think I like that idea. Also, I think I'm a little bit in love with Tom Holland and George MacKay; I shouldn't have watched _How I Live Now_ on repeat so many times…

I can't believe I haven't noticed the similarities between Ian Somerhalder and Rob Lowe before now…

Also: I **CATEGORICALLY** reject the finale of _The Originals_. Just…the whole season. Doe-eyed bratty teen!Hope who got Hayley killed; and the demonization of Elijah, only to have him end his life in a suicide-pact? He _never had a life_ ; he never had anything for himself, or anyone. I just - REJECTED. It has been **REJECTED.**

We'll say no more about it. (Unless you want to vent in great detail, in which case PM me).

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _04_

 _The Lay of the Land_

* * *

"Stefan."

"You don't look surprised to see me."

"Your sentence is almost over."

"Yeah. But there's talk of parole."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Stefan sighed, his smile uncertain. They hadn't seen each other in a decade. Giulia wasn't a skinny seventeen-year-old anymore. Stefan was, although he seemed to have bulked up a little bit. Stefan sighed, chuckling under his breath, and shook his head.

"I figured you probably had someone tip you off that we were on our way back to town." He smiled, beautiful in the moonlight. Standing there, Giulia stared; as a teenager, she had never looked at Stefan and thought, He looks _young_. Because she had been the same age, she hadn't noticed. Now she did. He was stuck inside his seventeen-year-old body. And he was just as handsome as he had been the day he was shot in the back and turned into a vampire. But it was only as a twenty-seven-year-old that Giulia noticed that Stefan did look very _young_.

"After a fashion," Giulia admitted.

"I, uh, couldn't get into the house."

"No," Giulia said, smiling gently. He wouldn't be able to. Giulia had made sure of it. He had brought the devil home with him. She wasn't giving either of them access to her property, even if it wasn't her _home_. It was Rose's now, it had been Matt's for a long time.

"Guess I picked the wrong weekend to come home, huh? Don't worry…we've already found somewhere else to stay, I just…thought I'd visit and see Damon," Stefan smiled. Giulia frowned softly.

"Damon left…months after you did," Giulia said. "But you knew that." They hadn't seen each other, but they had spoken, though infrequently. He'd given her lip about burning down Whitmore - it was only the _one_ building.

Stefan frowned, sighing, running a hand through his hair, looking suddenly tired. "I guess I forgot… I kinda expected everything to be the way I left it, you know?"

"Time doesn't just stand still," Giulia said softly, sympathetically. She knew a little of what Stefan had endured over the last decade. Since Klaus had Stefan's compulsion erased in Chicago and raised his sister from the dead, things hadn't been quite as awful for him, when it came to the physical and emotional abuse at Klaus' hands, but it was a lot more confused now that Stefan remembered being the Ripper, and the Ripper's bond with sociopath Klaus, and…and falling in love with Rebekah, whom Giulia had never met but had heard about - at length, and in great detail - from her cousin Kol, and from the charismatic Marcel Gerard.

While Stefan had endured Klaus, time had moved on. The people he had left behind had moved on, including the brother he had left to save.

"Yeah," Stefan sighed, looking exhausted. "I know… Rebekah woke thinking it was 1922 and I didn't even remember her."

"That's harsh."

"That's Klaus. He loves to punish." Giulia shifted uneasily, glancing around.

"I've heard. Is he here?"

"No. I left him near the National Park," Stefan said, sighing. "Up in the mountains. He won't be bothering anyone for a few days." Giulia raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"You came here alone?"

"No, I, uh…" Stefan cleared his throat softly, approaching them carefully, at a pace that was clearly meant to be nonthreatening. After what he had endured over the last decade, Giulia was sure he had learned a thing or two about animal behaviour. He seemed to be consciously not wanting to provoke a reaction, good or bad. "You, uh…you remember the night I left? You put my old journal from 1922 in my duffel-bag?"

"I remember," Giulia said softly. How could she forget - that was the night she learned her mother _hadn't_ died in childbirth, but from complications of an aggressive cancer that had only been delayed long enough, by Damon's vampire-blood, so that Giulia could be born. That night Damon lay dying, the night Stefan had made a deal with the devil, Giulia had learned she had gestated with vampire-blood in her system; she had been born with the latent potential to become a supernatural being.

"There was a witch in Chicago…I kind of - _annoyed_ her - back in the Twenties, when I was the Ripper of Monterrey… Back when he still could, Klaus had compelled me to forget him, to forget Rebekah, just like you'd guessed. Gloria scrubbed the compulsion from my mind… I can remember everything."

"I imagine that violation has you pretty unsettled."

"Unsettled is a, uh, a good word for it," Stefan chuckled humourlessly. "It's hard to reconcile that I once thought Klaus was an entertaining friend, a _replacement_ for Damon…" He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe how wrong he had been.

"And Rebekah?"

"She's…complicated," Stefan said, with a grin that was at once bashful and smug.

"But you're figuring out how to make her tick," she guessed, and Stefan had the grace to blush. He flicked a glance at Enzo, waiting patiently with sleeping Zita in his arms.

"You, uh, you must be Giulia's husband." Giulia bit her lip around a smirk, amusement bubbling up in spite of the situation. Her _husband_? She stifled a grin. "I'm Stefan, her…cousin."

"Lorenzo," Enzo said with enthusiasm, shit-eating grin in place. He was enjoying the hell out of himself. "I've heard a _lot_ about you, Stefan." Just not from Giulia. Decades ago, trapped in a cell, starved, experimented upon, talking about Stefan had helped Damon pass the time. Enzo, his eyes twinkling in the starlight, turned to Giulia. "I'll go and get Zita settled. Stay and chat with your cousin." He gave her a lecherous grin as he leaned in to give her a lingering kiss, making her shiver. She wasn't going to hear the end of Stefan mistaking him for her husband for a long time. And Enzo knew he wasn't going to get away with kissing her as if he was.

Her husband was a touchy subject. She allowed Caroline to talk about Fabian because not letting Caroline talk about something as huge as Giulia's disintegrating marriage was just recipe for a verbal explosion of nuclear proportions - and she was already anticipating one about her dirty Originals secret. But being kissed by Enzo just highlighted how long it had been since she _had_ been kissed, since she had been caressed, since she had made love. She hadn't seen Fabian in person in just shy of four years; Zita came into their lives, and they'd made a decision. Her marriage had been in limbo ever since. She was still married; she didn't date.

But Enzo's kiss had reminded her just how lonely she was. She didn't _need_ anyone; but she _wanted_ … She wanted Fabian; or some sort of resolution to her marriage. She was nothing if not loyal, and that was a painful, lonely place to be sometimes. She just wasn't wired to be unfaithful.

Enzo wandered off, chuckling under his breath, tickled by Stefan's mistake in his identity, and Tisiphone licked her feet and Zeus huffed as he sat down on the grass. Gallant scented the air in Stefan's direction and sneezed. Giulia watched Enzo walking off in the moonlight with Zita in his arms, reassured that there were few places in the world safer for her daughter to be than in Enzo's grasp.

"Your daughter looks just like you," Stefan said quietly, also watching after Enzo. "You had the same curls at her age." Giulia smiled softly, fiddling with her rings. To anyone who knew her tells, they might wonder what she thought about when she fiddled with them; but if anyone brought up how much Zita looked like her, she touched them out of reflex. Next to her mother's pearl solitaire ring, she wore a dazzling vintage daisy cluster diamond engagement-ring and a simple gold wedding-band. Fabian had matched her rings to her mother's, which she rarely took off. On her other hand, she usually alternated the jewels Damon had given her for each PhD and her completed Architecture degree, or the stunning platinum Art Deco-inspired aquamarine Enzo had given her when Zita was born.

"Stefan?! There you are! I found a nightclub serving all our old favourites, and the most _divine_ jazz band," a chirpy voice declared, and Giulia watched as a blonde beauty approached, having trouble in her heels on the grass. "Apparently there'll be a Charleston competition for charity tomorrow - we should enter! I'm feeling philanthropic. What do you think? I've still got all my frocks. How long do you think you can last after a few De La Louisianes? Who's this?"

"Giulia…I'd like for you to meet Rebakah," Stefan said, and he had been brought up in a time where etiquette meant he knew he was showing Giulia deference by introducing Rebekah to her, rather than the other way around. "Rebekah, this is my great-great-great…great-niece, Giulia Salvatore."

"Pleasure," Rebekah said, with a tight smile and an assessing sweep of pretty blue eyes. "Are we dancing tonight? I wish you'd told me there was dancing, these are _not_ the appropriate heels for the Charleston, by any stretch of the imagination."

"Louboutins. They're pretty, though," Giulia said, glancing down at Rebekah's shoes, the trademark red soles. She knew she had been dismissed by Rebekah, taking a book for its cover worth.

"Stefan took me to New York," Rebekah dimpled, beaming fondly at Stefan. "He's so sweet to me." Stefan just shrugged slightly.

"I guess we'll be dancing," Stefan said softly, glancing at Giulia. "I'll let you go, tuck your daughter in. But maybe tomorrow…we can catch up?"

"Oh, count on it," Giulia promised him. Something had made Rebekah freeze as she glanced between the two of them.

"You have a daughter?" she asked quietly. Her accent was clipped, almost English but with a faint hint of French and a drawl on some words that was distinctly American.

"I do," Giulia nodded.

"How old is she?" Rebekah asked, her entire face illuminating. She truly was beautiful, with high cheekbones, a sweet little nose and plump, pouting lips. Someone had taught her how to apply her makeup as it was worn nowadays, Giulia could tell even in the moonlight.

"Zita is four," Giulia said, and Rebekah's pretty face morphed into a smile that was at once wistful and tragic. Stefan watched her carefully, and took her hand.

"We should let you go. Apparently I've got some drinks to catch up on." Giulia wondered if Kol had ducked out of Rebekah's sight…if _Victoire_ had ducked out of sight, too. They had known each other in New Orleans.

"I had only the two cocktails!" Rebekah protested, but she let Stefan lead her away.

"Goodnight, Giulia."

"One thing before you go, Stefan," Giulia said, and Stefan glanced over his shoulder. "No tucking into the locals. You'll regret it if you do."

Rebekah froze, and turned, with almost animalistic, predatory grace. "Who are you, to give us veiled threats about doing exactly as we please in this armpit of a village? How do you imagine you will stop us?"

"I won't need to try," Giulia said coolly, frowning gently, tilting her head to one side as she observed Rebekah. Most importantly, she didn't cower under the look Rebekah was giving her, one she imagined got Rebekah exactly as she wanted. They would feed; and they would learn. For all intents and purposes, Mystic Falls was a Prohibition-zone to vampires. Like Lily Potter, Giulia had afforded the people of Mystic Falls her protection in her death that night at the quarry. Neither vampire nor werewolf could inflict harm on the human locals, without being punished for it, even the witches were limited as to what they could do, and Sheila was happy about that; it meant fewer people could strong-arm them into unwilling compliance. "Goodnight, Stefan," Giulia said, with a dismissive bite, and when the two were gone, she reached up and pinched between her eyes, suddenly tired.

She checked her watch. So his arrival hadn't ruined her day. It was two a.m. and she could happily compartmentalise the wonderful night she had been enjoying, and Stefan's arrival with Rebekah, as two separate events.

She followed the scent of rich, dark, bitter, chocolatey coffee to Enzo, who was brewing espresso and had lit one of the lamps on the table in the awning and was smoking a cigar with Ric while Jenna and Sheila chatted quietly in the lamplight, wrapped in light blankets because there was definitely a damp chill to the air even in June. She checked in on Zita, who was snoring softly in the teardrop in her night-dress, starfished across the bed. Giulia smoothed a hand over her curls, sighing, and went to sit in Enzo's lap, the only available seat. She sipped her coffee, and smiled when Enzo brought out the bottle of _Barolo Chinato_ , and the tin of lovingly handmade _baci di dama_ Enzo was famous for; he always gifted _digestivi_ and handmade Italian cookies on special occasions, and Jenna especially adored them. She was a big fan of the new traditions Enzo had brought to their lives through his friendship with Giulia, and however he had come into their lives, Jenna wasn't sorry Enzo was her friend.

And Giulia needed his friendship in that moment, with Stefan's appearance and Rebekah's dismissive attitude. Enzo had cuddled Zita in the diner; now he cuddled Giulia in the lamplight. Even after Ric and Jenna had stumbled off to bed, hand-in-hand, and Sheila had gently held Giulia's face in her hands, kissing her before heading off to the RV, to Bonnie and Penelope and the Unborn, Giulia stayed in Enzo's lap, letting him cuddle her.

She had never known how much she wanted a bond like she had with Enzo in her life until times like this, when he just let her sit in his lap and cuddled her, and didn't ask her about the million thoughts racing through her mind, just protected her from the worst of them by keeping her grounded and in the moment, enjoying their closeness.

They drank an extra finger of the fortified wine, nibbling the sweet-looking little cookies, literally translated as _Lady's kisses_ , and turned the lamp low, watching the stars, listening to the night-insects and the strains of music carrying on the breeze, biting their lips around smiles as Caroline and Jesse's tent shivered without a breeze.

They waved and smiled when Ashlyn and Jeremy staggered back to their tent, the beam of their flashlight darting about as Ashlyn stifled giggles and Jeremy laughed, and paused for a breathless kiss; and Giulia sat and fiddled with her rings, and fought the influence of a few cocktails and a long day and a constant reminder of the ache in her chest and her loneliness…

Enzo took her hand, gently, and gave her a wistful smile. He stoppered the wine-bottle, and gave her wrist a delicate, chaste kiss. "It'll all be alright," he told her quietly, and when the tent next-door collapsed, with Jesse and Caroline trapped inside, locked tight in each other's embrace, they choked on laughter, but dutifully snapped the rods back into place and tightened the guy-ropes as Jesse's rich laugh echoed and Caroline's muffled squeals of mortification carried on the air.

"Stefan thought we're _married_." She smiled to herself, curled up in the teardrop with Zita on one side and Enzo on the other, the little dogs at the foot of the bed and Zeus guarding the awning.

"I take it as a compliment," Enzo murmured against her neck, and Giulia smiled.

"I might, too, if it was the truth."

"It's nice to know you wouldn't be ashamed to marry me. Personally I can understand Stefan's mistake; you are such an incorrigible _flirt_ whenever I'm around."

" _Me_?" She smiled, wriggling onto her back, and glanced over at Enzo.

"Yes, you." He smiled lazily back at her.

"It would be so easy, wouldn't it?"

"What would?"

"You and me, a life together, with Zita." It sounded wonderful. But they had reached this point in their relationship because they _weren't_ romantically involved. They were family; that was a stronger, abiding, deeper kind of love.

"I don't think true love is supposed to be easy," Enzo said thoughtfully.

"No," Giulia sighed, gazing up at the low ceiling. "It certainly is not that." She continued to stare, until Enzo asked her what was keeping her up.

"Just…time passing…people being left behind," she said softly. She glanced at Enzo. "Tomorrow I'm going to have to tell Stefan exactly what it means that we've all moved on without him."

"And with everything else you've got going on… You just don't know how to make life easier for yourself, is the problem," Enzo sighed, gathering her up in his arms.

"True," Giulia agreed, humming softly.

He sighed, leaning in to press a tender kiss to her cheek. "Get some sleep, Giulia."

"Can't make me," she sighed, cuddling up close, relaxing, and fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Stefan caught up with her early the next morning; she had left Enzo preparing the _campidanese_ sauce for their lunch while she walked the dogs, her boots on and a light jacket covering her pyjamas as she and Zita wandered along the hedgerows and the treeline into the woods. She wanted to know everything about Zita learning Shirley Temple's 'Codfish Ball' dance, and smiled to herself, wondering how her tiny girl had kept the secret for so long. She'd had no idea.

But then, her father had had no idea about a good deal of the stuff Giulia had gotten up to when she was a kid.

They walked, hand-in-hand, watching the dogs snuffle and explore, chatting about dancing and Shirley Temple and Enzo and Caroline working together to teach Zita the dance she loved. Zita, who always loved a dawdle whenever they walked the dogs, was for once not distracted by every patch of wildflowers or the twitching of the underbrush as a bird dug for worms; she was engrossed in her conversation with Giulia about dancing, and music. She told Giulia which of the bands she had liked watching the most yesterday, and the colours she could see when she listened to others. Giulia smiled, thinking of Kandinsky, and how passionate Zita was about _music_. Ever since she was a newborn she had stilled to listen, entranced; Giulia had spent hours on the piano, or the violin. Her tiny old gunmetal _iPod_ Nano was the source of classical and jazz and big band and punk and classic rock and it was the Holy Grail to Zita, who had learned through playing with Ruth's _Kindle Fire_ when the Saltzmans babysat to find music on _YouTube_.

A four-year-old shouldn't love Saint-Saëns' _Cello Concerto in A Minor Op. 33_ and Mendelssohn's _Hebrides_ and Stravinsky's _Capriccio for Piano & Orchestra_ and the soundtrack to _Wonder Woman_ and _The Hunger Games_ quadrilogymore than, say, 'Let it Go', as Ruth had, or _The Greatest Showman_ , which had been on repeat at Caroline's place for _months_ \- admittedly in Giulia's car, too; Zita _had_ fallen in love with the musical. But classical music, and movie scores fascinated her.

Zita woke every morning for _music_. The first thing she did when she clambered downstairs for breakfast was to climb onto the piano stool while Giulia prepared their oatmeal; if it was too early for her to be allowed to come downstairs, she had a small stereo in her bedroom that Giulia let her listen to, quietly, or she picked up her guitar and started plucking the strings, or her flute. She was meticulous with her musical instruments; and because Giulia wanted to encourage but not smother her talent, she was slowly introducing more instruments for Zita to explore, and Zita did explore. She sat and played and taught herself just by listening, finding out what sounded beautiful.

Zita danced with Giulia because she had learned from watching her mother that it was fun, and dancing made Giulia happy. But she engaged with the music more than Giulia had ever seen anyone truly listen to it, as if focusing every fibre of her being to absorb it into her soul. She understood it, as a language few others knew how to decipher. Like her mother and codes. Giulia had been around the same age when her father realised that Giulia's mind was extraordinary.

And Giulia was slowly starting to experience the mingled wonder and dread her father had felt when he realised that his child was extraordinarily gifted. Because hers was, too. And like her father, she was a single-parent to a truly gifted child. The difference was, she also had Caroline, and Enzo, and Liz, and the Saltzmans, and Mason, and Sheila, and Carol Lockwood, and Matt, and Rose, and Kol, and Cara. Her father had cloistered himself in the Boarding House with his strange, bright daughter, a sorrowful introvert broken by the loss of his wife and the unresolved disappearance of his brother; Giulia had returned to Mystic Falls to allow herself and her newborn daughter to be embraced into a sprawling family, a support network to buoy her when times were hard and share in every wonder.

She had returned to Mystic Falls because she needed somewhere sleepy and welcoming to raise her daughter.

For the first time in her life, she hadn't wanted to do it _alone_.

She'd needed help. Giulia had come home.

Stefan's reappearance represented the fragility of that illusion of safety she had returned to, more ever than waking the Originals yet had.

Giulia glanced down at Zita as a slim dark figure approached, hands in his pockets. If she had had second-thoughts about waking the Originals, she knew she didn't regret taking the dagger out of Finn's chest. He doted on Zita; if nothing else, she thought he might protect her should she and Enzo fail to do so. Enzo was charming and irreverent but she knew what he was capable of when they were threatened. But she didn't want him to put himself in harm's way because of something she had done. She had freed him; she had not freed him to _use_ him.

Stefan approached, as carefully as he had last night - more so, because his eyes rested on Zita with her beautiful curls and yellow gumboots, leaning over to vigorously scratch Gallant as he wriggled and writhed on his back, snorting.

"Where'd you come from?" Giulia asked quietly, glancing around, readjusting her sunglasses. It was six a.m. and there was no such thing as a lie-in with three dogs and a four-year-old little girl; the birds had been singing since five and Giulia had woken with Zita's foot digging into her neck and the dogs were insistent about going out for their morning walk. Giulia never liked walking the dogs in the heat of the day; it was first thing in the morning before breakfast or late in the evening, decompressing from a long day.

"Oh, I didn't go home last night," Stefan said, shrugging slightly, his smile hesitant but his eyes sparkling. He was obviously in high spirits, despite everything. Giulia wondered what that meant.

"Did you have a De La Louisiane?"

"Those were always Rebekah's tipple," Stefan smiled lazily.

"Where's she this morning?"

"Back at the house, going through her _trousseau_ ," Stefan chuckled at the outdated term for Rebekah's wardrobe. "She wants to come back tonight and dance - for a donation, of course. I know this is a ticketed event."

"And yet, here you are," Giulia said, glancing at him over the top of her sunglasses. "Where are you set up, anyway?"

"There's a, uh, ultra-modern place out toward Mystic Gardens," Stefan sighed. He didn't do contemporary.

"Oh, with the view of the woods," she said grimly, nodding. She knew which house he meant; there were only so many modern mansions in Mystic Falls. "A contemporary eyesore."

"You know it?" He sounded like he agreed with Giulia's opinion of the place. It was an ultra-chic, ultra-impractical place of squashy off-white carpets, sharp white furniture, frosted glass, shining chrome fixtures, ambiguous off-white art, marble busts and no personality whatsoever.

"Rather big for three people."

"Klaus likes to make a statement." Giulia made a thoughtful noise. She was a fully-qualified Architect; she focused on sustainability, green buildings, recycling, and rejuvenation. Truthfully, she thought the white mansion overlooking the woods was a gaudy monstrosity; whoever had commissioned it twenty years ago had obviously had more money than taste. Stefan shrugged offhandedly. "The colours changing should look pretty come fall."

Giulia didn't say anything about the implication; that Klaus would still be here in the autumn. Zeus stalked closer to them, sniffed at Stefan, sneezed, and came to wind himself around Giulia's legs, as if he sensed the threat and simultaneously wanted to protect and seek Giulia's protection.

"I thought you were a cat person," he said quietly, eyeing Zeus the Weimeraner and Giulia's two little Dachshunds, who had more attitude packed into their tiny little bodies than in Zeus' left ear.

"I inherited Zeus," Giulia shrugged, and the glorious silver-blue dog glanced up at her with vivid blue eyes, ears twitching. "When his dads broke up, they couldn't decide who deserved to keep him. We fell in love, so I took him in." Kind of like Enzo. Stefan smiled at her, eyeing the dogs warily, his eyes resting briefly on Zita, her curls shining chestnut and copper and molasses and gold in the early sunlight.

"Caroline's daddies couldn't look after Zeus anymore," Zita said, plucking her thumb out of her mouth to speak to Stefan, her voice sad, as she reached out to lovingly stroke Zeus's velvety ears. Zeus nuzzled her neck and licked her ear.

"Zita…this is Stefan, my cousin," Giulia said, touching her daughter's curls gently. Dark eyes flitted up to Stefan's face. "Stefan, this is my daughter, Zita."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Zita," Stefan said, to his great-great-several-times-removed-great-niece. He smiled, as if it was a genuine pleasure; he had been raised with manners, after all.

"Hello," Zita said softly, glancing uncertainly from Giulia to Stefan, frowning gently as she looked to Giulia to gauge how she should react to this newcomer. Though very young, Zita was observant; already, she was showing signs that she was a gentle, confident child with a kind nature and a stunning aptitude for music. Perhaps she heard the underlying tension in their voices, in what was not being said.

It was clear Stefan was unused to proximity with children: the last one he had been around…was Giulia. And she now had the memories Damon had compelled her to forget as a child, of being attacked by Stefan, when he had snacked on her pet rabbits Rumball and Daffodil; she had been five at the time. Vampires and babies didn't mix. But Stefan made an effort. "Did you name Zeus?"

Zita started to reply, but had her thumb in her mouth; Giulia reached down and gently tugged her hand away. Zita glanced up at her, squinted in the sunshine, latched on to the hem of Giulia's jacket, but glanced up and met Stefan's eye when she said, "No, he's my older-brother. Do you have any pets?"

"I don't," Stefan admitted, with a smile. "I did used to have a pet pig, though."

"A _pig_?!" Zita gurgled a laugh, glancing up at Giulia to smile.

"Uh-huh."

"What was her name?"

"Her name was Martha." Zita giggled softly. "You think that's a funny name for a pig?"

"I - I like it," Zita said softly, glancing coyly at Stefan.

"So what are these two called?" he asked, indicating the Dachshunds.

"That's Gallant. And this is Tisiphone." Her lisp caught on her S's and Giulia's lips twitched.

"Gallant and Tisiphone and Zeus?" Stefan shot Giulia a look, no doubt remembering Daffodil and Rumball just as she had. So she gave her pets odd names!

"Simba had to stay at home. He's a house-lion."

"You have a _lion_?"

"No, he's a kitty! But he thinks he's a lion, he likes watching _The Lion King_ but I - I don't like…" Zita trailed off, looking crestfallen.

"The wildebeest stampede," Giulia murmured, patting Zita's curls tenderly, and Stefan's lips twitched.

"Your mom never liked that bit when she was as little as you, either." All the more poignant now because Mufasa had been betrayed and died trying to protect his child.

"Come on, we should get this small stampede moving," Giulia said, nudging Zeus onward with her knee, gently, and the other two dogs scrabbled and gambolled around. Zita skipped ahead, pausing for wildflowers, and to scratch a wiggling Tisiphone. Zeus kept pace with her, her constant guardian.

Keeping an eye on her dogs and her daughter, Giulia fell into step beside Stefan, who still had his hands in his pockets and was squinting in the sunlight. There was a touch of damp in the air, freshness, the early-morning dew that would soon be chased off by June sunshine in Virginia. "How's your diet?"

Stefan glanced at her.

"I guess I don't need to tell you that I've been drinking human blood," Stefan said. He was always more charismatic when he was on the hard stuff; he was so _broody_ when he went vampire-vegan. "But I've kind of had to learn to manage it. One of us at least had to be mindful…at least, one of us had to tidy up the mess we left behind."

"So you've been skating the razor's edge," Giulia said.

"All those years, Damon tried to tell me to just embrace what I am and learn to pull myself back from the edge…to _choose_ to feed and leave a human dazed but alive," Stefan sighed, shaking his head. He glanced at Giulia, holding her gaze. "Would've been easier on everyone if I'd just listened…instead of judging Damon for his lifestyle… I guess I've learned how to flirt with the edge rather than flinging myself headfirst… Everyone thinks the Ripper of Monterrey is a vampire legend...the Ripper has _nothing_ on Klaus now."

"I've heard some things," Giulia admitted quietly. Katherine was _not_ her only source.

"He's wanted me to be as careful as possible to cover his tracks," Stefan frowned softly, but he sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not gonna ask where you get your information from."

"Just be grateful I don't disseminate it."

"What've you heard?" Stefan asked uneasily, glancing at her. In the early-morning sunlight, he looked like a normal seventeen-year-old, though a very handsome one. He had an edgier, more mature Zac Efron vibe to him, with his perfect light-brunette hair and pretty eyes, the Salvatore bone-structure and edgy, subtly moneyed sense of style.

"I've heard that the werewolf aspect of his nature isn't bound to the moon's cycle, because he's also a vampire…but because he's also a vampire, he can never turn fully into a wolf like a true werewolf can… He can't keep blood down, and his bite isn't toxic to vampires… I know that because you're still here, even after what happened along the Appalachian Trail all those years back… I've heard he makes the Ripper of Monterrey look like a shy kindergartner when he's on a terror, but he's mostly mindless; when the bloodlust hits, he's driven by warring instincts. I've heard watching his transformations is truly…harrowing."

Stefan sighed, gazing off into the distance, at Zita, skipping alongside Zeus, with the tiny dogs pelting after them trying to keep up on their short little legs, tails wagging energetically. For a little while, he didn't speak. He didn't deny any of it; that was damning in itself. After a little while, he sighed heavily.

"Let's talk about something else. Something happier," he said, looking almost anguished for half a second. She couldn't imagine the toll the last decade had taken on him. "You have a daughter."

Giulia smiled softly. "I have a daughter."

"Of all the things I might've expected to find when I got back home, that wasn't one of them," Stefan said thoughtfully, and Giulia glanced at him, knowing sort of what he meant. It wasn't that Giulia hadn't been maternal as a child or teenager. She had loved children. She'd just never had a mother; she had dreaded pregnancy, the repercussions of having grown up believing she had killed her mother in childbirth.

"How so?"

"I - I don't know, I guess I never really imagined you'd have kids," Stefan said quietly. "Kind of like your dad, surprising everyone when he came home from Italy with your mother… I guess the last time we saw each other, you were…I don't know… _intensely academic_." Meaning, she hadn't gone around telling everyone how much she wanted a family of her own; she might've told them the title of the essay she was researching, or the obscure Renaissance manuscript she was reading. "I don't know, maybe I imagined you on Wall Street. Kind of like Harvey Specter with breasts."

"You've been watching a lot of television."

"Thank God for _Netflix_ … So what do I need to catch up on?"

Giulia glanced at Stefan, and saw the hesitant, sombre expression on his face, wistful and almost reluctant. The friends and loved ones he had left behind a decade ago had moved on without him; and they had grown up. Only Caroline remained as young and beautiful as she had been at seventeen; the rest of them were aging. Even Giulia. It wasn't noticeable until she looked at photos of herself with Caroline, or standing here, now, beside Stefan, and realising how young he still looked.

She had forgotten he was handsome; she hadn't realised he did look _young_.

She hadn't forgotten how much Stefan and Elena had been in love; she hadn't forgotten her part in putting an end to Elena endangering herself in her efforts to find a way to get Stefan back.

Giulia knew when Stefan asked what he needed to catch up on…he was really asking about her - _Elena_. Once upon a time Giulia would've been hurt by that: She was stood here in front of him but he only cared about Elena. It didn't bother her any more.

She sighed, glancing at Zita.

"I know we told you about Damon having to compel Elena to let you go…" Stefan nodded. She had become so hell-bent on freeing Stefan from his deal with Klaus that she had _scared_ people: Elena had refused to accept that Stefan had left, and that she had to move on without him. She had to deal with the loss of John, her birth-father, and of Stefan, the love of her life.

Damon had finally compelled Elena to let Stefan go; but not to stop loving him. Giulia often wondered whether that was their error. She didn't think Damon could ever have erased his little brother from the mind and the heart of the girl who truly loved him.

They had gifted her with _acceptance_. Everything else, she had to work on. Getting Elena to the point where she had been coaxed into a relationship with Matt, where she had moved in with him, married him, had been excited to carry their child and give birth to him… Elena might not have made it through her senior-year of high-school if not for Caroline's tenacity; Giulia had been in New York at school, leaving Elena the sole focus of all Caroline's considerable energy. Had it not been for Caroline's stubbornness and friendship, Giulia didn't think any of them would still have a relationship with Elena; she had guided Elena through her grief.

Giulia looked at Stefan and realised they were in a similar boat: they had both left the ones they loved, their relationships in intolerable limbo. She thought of Fabian, her stomach going cold, and swallowed.

If it were her in Stefan's shoes, Giulia would want to know how the ground lay, without embellishment. There was no way to sugar-coat it, so she didn't: "Elena and Matt are married; their son Grayson is a couple months old."

If Stefan's heart had shattered into a million pieces, his smile didn't show it.

* * *

 **A.N.** : Another chapter for you lot!


	5. Corpse Reviver

**A.N.** : How do we feel about Damon with a _werewolf_? The irony is delightful, don't you think? The idea kept me sane at work on Thursday.

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _05_

 _Corpse Reviver_

* * *

As they walked, Giulia told Stefan the basics, the lay of the land as it were, how things stood ten years on. Stefan seemed most shocked by the fact that Giulia herself had become a mother. She didn't know what that said about how Stefan had seen her when she was a seventeen-year-old, but they had never been close. He had been too wrapped up in Elena to get to know Giulia. And just now, Giulia didn't go into details; she didn't correct Stefan's mistake in thinking Enzo was her husband. Truthfully she wasn't ready to explain Fabian.

Perhaps she should get some practice in, before… Before she had to tell _Elijah_.

The reminder that she had removed the dagger, that he was waking up in the witch-house and probably this minute gaping in disbelief at his _family_ …

It was reunions all around.

Hopefully Elijah would be too shocked that she was actually _alive_ to ask for details about what she had done _with_ her life.

She had PhDs and degrees coming out of her ass; maybe one day she'd actually figure out what was going on with her marriage. Only then she might actually be able to explain it to someone else. It was what it was. She was in limbo; and she hated it; and she dreaded the reality of it ending.

So she told Stefan what she could: She told him about Bonnie, and Sheila's upcoming retirement. It was important Stefan knew that Bonnie was a Muggle now; he listened with an intent frown as Giulia told him about Tulane and the witch-coven Bonnie had fallen in with, promising her help to cure Sheila of a cancerous growth that had turned out to be benign. Bonnie had gone down a _very_ dark path out of desperation and grief and Giulia had hauled her back by her hair, kicking and gouging and spitting blood, against the advice - and attempted intervention - of highhanded New Orleans witches who had wanted to lock Bonnie up in a witch-asylum, tucking her out of sight rather than putting in any effort to help her. When Stefan had known her, Bonnie was a baby witch just learning how to levitate feathers and dabble with locator spells. Now she was little more than a Squib and they were all waiting to find out whether Penelope and the Unborn had inherited her magical ancestry, or if Sheila stripping her powers had robbed Bonnie's children of their heritage. Giulia didn't know which Bonnie dreaded more.

Stefan smiled, when she told him about Ric and Jenna, growing sombre about Ruth's hearing problems; his lips twitched and he shook his head, laughing, when Giulia told him the story about Ric and Jenna's son's naming - or _mis_ naming. Believing it was all due to Damon's intervention that Ric had met and married Jenna in the first place - after turning his first wife Isobel - Damon had felt that honouring him by naming their first son after him wasn't too much to ask: at the registrar's office, after a fist-fight and a squabble, Ric and Damon had compromised. So Ruth's little brother was officially named James Damon, referred to as J.D., and Jenna still glowered whenever her son's full name was mentioned - though the fiery glare was losing heat; she knew she wouldn't have married Ric if Damon hadn't turned Isobel at her request.

No Damon, no J.D.

Ric and Jenna knew they had been given a second chance with each other, and had been brave enough to chase happiness together.

"I took a walk past the Gilbert house just after we got into town," Stefan admitted, as they wandered along. "Half-expected to see Jenna dashing out of the house still getting dressed, with toast in her mouth, tripping over her purse strap…"

"She and Ric bought a place together when Jeremy turned eighteen, they said it was only fair," Giulia said. Ric and Jenna had lived at the Gilbert house after they got married, saving money by renting out Ric's loft, looking after Jeremy, who in turn had helped them, still in high-school when Ruth was born. Years later, using their combined inheritances, Jeremy and Ashlyn had bought Elena out of her half of their childhood home. If Stefan had stopped by the house any other weekend, he might've seen Jeremy sat on the porch grading papers, while Ashlyn tended to the flowerbeds. A born-and-bred Manhattanite, it meant the world to Ashlyn that she had a backyard, and their flowerbeds were the envy of the neighbourhood.

"And you, are you still living in the place by the lake?" Stefan asked, and Giulia nodded.

"Yeah, Enzo and I live there, with Zita, and the animals," she sighed. Because even though they weren't married like Stefan had incorrectly guessed, they were family; Enzo didn't want to be anywhere else in the world but with his girls. Giulia enjoyed having a _family_ , even if she didn't have her husband.

"So what's, um, what's going on with the Boarding House?" What Stefan meant was, what had she done to his home?

"I had it renovated. After Damon left, Rose stayed; she's been living there ever since, she managed the restoration of the house while I was away at school…actually she and Matt kind of became a family; Matt lived at the house until he was twenty-four…" Giulia said, and Stefan nodded, frowning softly. "Anyway, the Boarding House is now a venue for weddings, for events… It's a destination restaurant. There's a fully-equipped commercial kitchen and the ethos is to grow produce on the premises, and if not we buy local, seasonal… We renovated or converted the other buildings on the property - the barns and the old stables; even the glasshouses in the walled gardens. Believe it or not, they actually took the longest to restore, they're actually still ongoing. We added the pool and spa a couple years ago - except to rejuvenate the panelling, we didn't touch the library." Even though she hated it; too many bad memories. Damon had killed Ric there; Giulia had been tortured by werewolves. She had always loved the library, until that point. Ever since, she had hated the house she had been tortured in, the house she had found her father murdered in…

Maybe one day that would change again, but at the moment, she still hated it. She kept it, because it was _her_ house, it had been Stefan and Damon's safety-net for decades, and it now provided a source of income but…she still hated the fact that her relatively wonderful childhood memories had been warped by everything that happened in her adolescence.

"I saw the gardens; they're doing afternoon-tea there and cards. Doll would be happy; she used to have her girlfriends come over to play bridge in the rose-garden," Stefan said, with a sad smile. Dorothy - Doll - Salvatore was Giulia's great-grandmother; she was the namesake of the renovated movie-theatre downtown, which Giulia also owned. "Um…what about…my room?"

Giulia glanced at Stefan. It was her house; it had been her decision. The Boarding House had been Stefan's depository since 1903, leaving behind every happy memory he had, dusty in an old attic bedroom. "Before the renovation started, I had all your things boxed up and if they weren't from the last three decades they're in storage; everything else we set up in the smaller barn - including your journals. You'll like the barn; it's not as moody as the attic but it has exposed stone walls and the original beams, and it has a pretty view of the vegetable-gardens. The water-pressure in the shower is _delightful_."

"What'd Damon think to all this?"

"Well, he's with Lexi and _she_ thought it was a great idea. Her actual word was 'liberating'," Giulia said, pulling a face, and Stefan chuckled softly. "So…he just had to accept it. His room's now the honeymoon suite. I thought he'd appreciate that." Stefan scoffed lightly, smirking. "And he was all for building a pyre with your old crap and lighting it up like Dido - but, Car stopped me." She sighed shortly, and Stefan chuckled; he knew he was a packrat.

"I'll have to thank her for that. Hey, what about the wine-cellar?"

"Under lock and key, don't worry!" Stefan grinned. "I know the limits of Damon's tolerance; selling the _Macallan_ and the 1925 _Glen Garioch_ to randoms would cross the line. I moved our personal stash."

"So…a destination restaurant and hotel, huh? Serve any good bourbon?"

"I'd better: I own a distillery."

"You _do_?"

"Yeah. Bourbon, and a gin distillery too. I blame Rose and Kol entirely; it's their influence. My relatives are _notorious_ lushes," Giulia said, and Stefan chuckled; it was true. "I figured I might as well invest and try and make some money out of our family's substance-abuse issues."

"We do spend a _lot_ of money on bourbon," Stefan agreed.

"Well, you and Damon never bought groceries."

"So does it have a name? Your bourbon?"

" _Resurgam_." _I shall rise again_. She smirked.

"A little on the nose," Stefan said, smiling; Giulia shrugged.

"The original product needed rebranding; _Resurgam_ fit in a lot of ways," she smiled. "And it's a gorgeous bourbon; Damon _nurses_ it, he doesn't just down it."

"A compliment," Stefan said, raising his eyebrows. They knew each other's drinking habits too well. Stefan guzzled the stuff to dull his instinct; Damon, to stifle his conscience. She had been taught to appreciate the ceremony and artistry of cocktail-making by Kol; if she had a drink that wasn't served with a meal, she made herself and Enzo one of the handful of Scotch whiskey or bourbon-based cocktails Kol had taught her how to make - her favourites were the Manhattan, the Rob Roy and the De La Louisiane. She liked other cocktails too, like the Gin Blossom and Between the Sheets, and of course a decent bottle of prosecco, she felt, outdid any overpriced Champagne, but she always went back to her favourites. And since becoming best-friends with Kol, she always served cocktails with a tiny bowl of olives or salted almonds or delicate cheese biscuits. She didn't like drinking on an empty stomach; alcohol no longer replaced a meal, it complimented them. Enzo was a true Italian raised to complement every aspect of the day with a beverage perfectly suited to the flavours of a meal; together he and Giulia had rediscovered his passion for food and drink and _life_ , and they had adopted many of his old traditions into their new lives.

Investing in the bourbon and gin distilleries were as much about securing another source of income as helping her friend secure his life's passion; Kol had asked her to become his partner in the distilleries. He had the expertise, and Giulia the interest: So they had relaunched _Resurgam_ bourbon and _Valkyrie_ gin, opening the distilleries to cocktail-making master-classes, tours and pre-wedding party weekends with accommodation and five-star dining. Giulia's involvement with the everyday running of the distilleries was negligible; she and Kol owned the distilleries but Kol's day-job was his nightclub in the French Quarter. They allowed others to run the businesses for them; which was necessary, because Kol never aged. It was an investment opportunity for Giulia, rather than a passion-project. She enjoyed being a consumer: After actively helping reboot the brands, she had become a silent-partner.

"There may be a bottle in the barn," Giulia said, glancing at Stefan, who raised his eyebrows. " _Maybe_." He smiled softly.

"I look forward to it," he said softly. He sighed, squinting across the campgrounds. "Did you tell anyone else I'm back?"

"I haven't had the time; they're all still asleep," Giulia said. She was only up so early because of her brood. Zita wandered along beside her, holding her hand, sucking her thumb.

"Do you, uh… How do you think people will react?" Stefan asked. She sighed heavily.

"In all honesty, I'm not sure," Giulia said, half-truthfully. She could anticipate a few people's reactions; the subject of Stefan had been brought up often enough since she had returned to Mystic Falls, the first Salvatore to return after the family exodus a decade ago. "There's only one way to find out."

"I can - I can come back…"

"Why?" Giulia frowned. "I thought Rebekah had her heart set on dancing."

"She's changeable," Stefan said quietly, as if this was an understatement. She had read Stefan's 1922 journal; she remembered his descriptions of Rebekah's volatility.

"Well, I'm not explaining to everyone why Stefan Salvatore, who hasn't been seen in ten years and doesn't dance, is out on the dance-floor, doing the Charleston with some pretty girl," Giulia said, because Stefan didn't dance, and Rebekah _was_ pretty.

Just as there was no gentle way of telling Stefan that the girl he loved had become a mother by another man in his absence, there was no real way of softening the impact of Stefan's reappearance, and the implications, to everyone he had left behind. Giulia wandered back to the teardrop trailer with Zita holding her hand and the dogs gambolling around, and Stefan keeping pace but slightly separate from them. Perhaps he was hesitant to be close to Zita, who darted off as soon as Enzo was in sight, running up to him to hold onto his leg and yawn, leaning against him familiarly, scenting the air as the dogs did for the bacon Enzo was frying.

"Heard you two talking; I threw a few extra rashers on for you," Enzo said, glancing over at Stefan. Enzo's bacon-butties were the best. Giulia smiled and kissed Enzo's cheek and sat Stefan down in one of the chairs with a milky coffee as she searched for the bottle of _HP_ sauce she had bought at extortionate price from the British food-store in Richmond. It was worth it. Ever since living and studying in London, she had become an unabashed Anglophile; Enzo's accent constantly reminded her of Central St Martins, where she had completed her Architecture degree, and soaked up as much culture as she could squash in around city-breaks across Europe.

"Zita, _quietly_ ," Giulia warned, as Zita fiddled with the _iPod_ dock, turning on a playlist, hastening to turn the volume down with a guilty look at Giulia.

" _Oh. My. God_." Caroline had emerged from her tent and she stood, in cute little pyjamas and gumboots and a cardigan, a handkerchief tied over her hair in rollers, gaping at Stefan. He stood up hastily, cradling his coffee almost shyly.

Caroline hadn't changed. Not really. Her hair was a little shorter, more platinum than golden, touching edgy, but she was just the same; her figure hadn't changed, neither had her vibrant blue eyes or her inability to disguise her reactions. Caroline had been a new vampire when Stefan had last seen her; a decade on, she had proven to be the very _best_ of what a vampire could be.

"Hello, Caroline," Stefan said softly, glancing at her almost shyly. Caroline's bright eyes flicked from Stefan's face to Giulia, sharing a speaking glance. Then she giggled, and ran to hug him, threatening to knock his coffee flying. And it was standing side-by-side with Stefan that Giulia remembered just how young Caroline had been when she was turned… The two of them looked perfect together - perfect, and _young_. Eternal teenagers.

"Caroline, I don't have enough bacon for you," Enzo remarked, glancing up from the frying-pan.

"That's okay, Mom's bringing donuts," Caroline smiled easily. She turned a shy smile on Stefan. "You're home…"

"How've you been, Caroline?" They sat, and talked, while Enzo cooked and Giulia helped and Zita hummed along to the music with Tisiphone curled in her lap, and fell asleep again after half a bacon-butty. Giulia left her to nap under the watchful eye of Enzo while Stefan and Caroline chatted, and drove her Beetle to the lake-house; she had to check on Hector the hedgehog and feed Simba. She cleaned out the litter tray, folded a load of laundry and tapped out a few emails, and caught sight of her shattered figurine in the trash, yet another reminder. Her phone pinged, a notification lighting up her screen.

Caroline had shared her videos and photographs of Zita and the other little kids on an App that Giulia had been working on for Jenna and Mason ever since Ruth and Spencer had been tiny; they had wanted to share their memories of their babies with Giulia and Ric's relatives, half a world away, but didn't trust _Facebook_ privacy-settings. Using the skills Slater had spent an afternoon introducing her to, and which she had honed, Giulia and a select handful of fellow undergraduates at NYU had created an invite-only, closed-group, password-protected App that backed up precious memories, creating visual timelines and digital scrapbooks of their children's lives, and produced beautiful physical memory books full of photographs through a publishing partnership. Like Kol's distilleries, the App was another of Giulia's sources of income; she was on the Board and made the quarterly meetings but after putting in the initial work to design the App, start the company and get everything up and running, she now left the business to be run by other people. She had thought up the App as a sort of gift for Ric and Jenna, and Hayley and Mason, as a way for them to save their memories; now, Giulia was privileged to be able to share her daughter's life.

There were a select few people who had been invited to access the stream of photographs and videos. Messages could be sent and received and printed in the memory-books alongside photographs, and she smiled as she read Sasha's beautiful comment on the video of Zita's Shirley Temple dance. She plugged in her phone to charge, not wanting to miss any other opportunities to photograph and document her daughter's life later; and checking the time, she smiled and connected to a _FaceTime_ call. He answered on the second ring.

An hour later, she was back at the campsite, bearing confirmation for Zita that Simba wasn't crying from loneliness; and most of the others were awake, bleary-eyed and hungover and nursing strong coffees while the kids ran around with Jeremy, giggling, and Giulia's friends caught up with Stefan, who had looked uncertain but relieved when Caroline had sat down to chat with him, and now looked a little overwhelmed and dazed by the sense of ease and the relaxed atmosphere he found himself in; maybe he had dreaded people making a bigger deal out of his return. Maybe the implications hadn't sunk in yet. Or Stefan was remembered as being so broody but polite and well-liked that it didn't matter.

Liz had indeed procured a big pink bakery box, and in a shocking, rare display, Carol Lockwood wandered over in her pyjamas and cotton robe with no makeup on, to share a cup of coffee and a yum-yum while Spencer had breakfast with Ruth and J.D. and cuddled little Penelope. Ever since she had learned the secret, ever since Tyler had decided not to return from New Orleans after graduating, Carol had learned that some things just had to be accepted; she had relaxed. Maybe that was Mason's influence. Her priorities had shifted. But Giulia still snapped a picture of Carol when she wasn't expecting it and sent it to Tyler; he wouldn't believe his mom had been seen out in public - in the elements - with no makeup, no bra, her hair untouched, wearing her pyjamas!

Carol's friendship with Liz had altered over the last ten years; it was much more _genuine_. They were two of the few who knew the secret; two of the handful Damon and Giulia had allowed of the original Founders' Council to remember the truth, and remain a driving force behind the Council's agenda to protect Mystic Falls from the supernatural. Only, now they used the supernatural beings who called Mystic Falls 'home' to help protect the town, rather than instigating witch-hunts and massacres.

They were two of the few parents remaining to the handful of kids affected by the supernatural, the last time vampires had come to town.

Giulia saw Carol looking thoughtful as she subtly watched Stefan; and the sadness in Liz's eyes as she carefully folded the empty pink bakery box, listening in on her daughter's conversation with Stefan.

His expression only faltered really when Carol asked after Damon; "Is he coming back to town, too? You two always used to bring such character to our Founders' Parties…of course we had no idea that you two were actually _sons_ of one of the Founders…!"

"I, uh, don't know - I haven't seen Damon in years," Stefan admitted, pulling a face that was at once irreverent and devastated.

"I suppose when your lives are so extended, a few years doesn't seem like much at all," Carol mused, thinking of Tyler, who, like Mason, was aging much slower than was natural. Carol felt every day of her son's absence. Widowed young, her son half a Continent away, Carol's life now was her philanthropic work, her social calendar and Spencer. She visited Tyler during a particular jazz festival celebrated in New Orleans every spring before it got unbearably hot, and came home sad but content that Tyler had built a life for himself that the both of them were proud of.

"I haven't been to New Orleans in a long time," Stefan mused, after Carol told him Tyler had left home, frowning softly to himself as if he had just realised something. He caught Giulia's eye. "It was an old friend's playground for a good while, though. It has a culture all its own."

"It certainly does," Carol smiled warmly. "Tyler enjoys it."

"I'm surprised Tyler became a teacher," Stefan said. Truthfully he hadn't had much interaction with Tyler beyond stopping him from lashing out physically at Jeremy Gilbert, back before they knew what Tyler was - or what he had the potential to become. He hadn't spent time with Tyler since his first transformation; Stefan had left town too quickly after Tyler triggered his curse to know that Tyler had been enveloped in the folds of their family of misfit supernatural puzzle-piece toys.

"Well, certain life-events shifted Tyler's priorities," Carol said softly, a sad smile on her face. "He's found his purpose." Stefan nodded, looking mildly interested; Giulia handed Carol a top-up of her coffee and Spencer hobbled over, wincing, his ankle bloody where he had tripped over a guy-rope and torn the skin on one of the pegs tying a tent down. Caroline brought out her First Aid kit - ever prepared - and Giulia tended to the wound, frowning softly at the presence of a couple of bruises. Spencer was an active kid who played a lot of sports, but there was a bruise on his upper-arm and Giulia had seen bruises there before.

She tidied up Spencer's leg, sticking a small bandage over the cut, and sent him on his way, but not before exchanging a frown with Carol, who had noticed.

People might excuse Hayley, saying she had a temper. She did. Being a mother was hard work. It was. Maybe her kid had behavioural issues. Spencer didn't. It was his mother who had the issues; it was Spencer who caught the backlash whenever Mason and Hayley fought, no matter how hard Mason tried to protect his son from the grimmer realities of his parents' marriage. When Carol drifted off with Spencer to get ready for the day, Stefan sidled up to Giulia, quietly, frowning.

"So whose… Who are Spencer's parents?"

"He's Mason's son… Do you remember Hayley?"

"Yeah, the werewolf," Stefan frowned, after a moment. "She's the one who bit Damon that night…"

"Mm-hmm." Not that Hayley deigned to remember that night, or show any sign of contrition. She hadn't known Stefan, didn't think anything to having bitten Damon, and she and Giulia were polite - but not friends. Giulia was friends with Mason, and was idolised by their son Spencer.

"So she stuck around town after the ritual?"

"It was a relatively vampire-free zone after you left. Hayley got pregnant within three months of the ritual," Giulia said quietly, as Stefan helped her do the dishes on the fold-out table. She and Caroline had become a well-oiled machine when it came to camping out in the teardrop; they had turned cooking out of it into a culinary art-form. Stefan's heavy eyebrows rose, pulling a face one might expect to see on someone who had been brought up in the sexually-repressed Victorian period. "Whether or not she intended to is open for debate, but…Mason married her that fall and Spencer came along soon after."

Giulia had been invited to the wedding - by Mason - a quiet, curiously romantic event at dusk on the Lockwood property, the foliage turning ochre and scarlet and purple around them; it had been intimate and relaxed, although there had been a funky feeling underlying everything. They knew Mason was marrying Hayley because she was pregnant. She had looked very beautiful, in a simple ivory silk sheath dress with subtle glam sparkles and an interesting open keyhole neckline, backless, to distract from the bump she tried to hide with her small bouquet of orchids.

She didn't think anyone had really been impressed with Hayley, beyond her looking such a beautiful bride; but Mason had done what he viewed was the right thing by marrying her, had graduated the Academy and joined the Sheriff's Department as an upstanding, devoted, reliable Deputy. He had found them a house; and he cried when Spencer was born.

Mason still burst out laughing every time his wedding-day was brought up in conversation; none of them would ever forget that Giulia had had to hide in an en-suite while Mason and Hayley went at it after the ceremony. As soon as she'd found an opening she had darted out of the room, leaving them flabbergasted, in disarray, with Mason gaping and Hayley giggling, and shuddered as she downed a few fingers of bourbon. There was a reason she knew the sex was amazing for them; their entire marriage was based on it. When real life, when parenthood and the exhaustions of the Sheriff's Department had started to catch up with them, and that aspect of their marriage had been set on the back-burner…what else had they had, except Spencer?

Giulia had gifted them their wedding-rings rings; bands of polished redwood and raw hecatolite - _moonstone_ \- bound by a narrow seam of gold.

They were _moonlight_ -rings, blocking the effects of the moon on werewolves just as daylight rings made of lapis lazuli and silver blocked the side-effects of sunlight on vampires.

Giulia had helped Sheila write the spell that created moonlight-rings: Giulia wasn't a practicing witch by any stretch of the imagination but she had a brilliant mind and those rings had marked the start of her obsession with the Occult that had led to one of her PhDs. She wasn't a born witch but she was brilliant, and appreciated the delicacies of witchcraft; she had learned the language, the rules, the _code_ of magic. Sheila mused that the first witches in history had been like Giulia, learning how to read Nature, experimenting, learning, before there ever were rules laid out in ancient crumbling grimoires for new generations to learn from and respect and add to. They had learned to harness the magic of Nature, until their descendants had been born with the innate ability to manipulate the elements.

The rings protected werewolves from the influence of a full-moon, but they didn't diminish their strength or their senses. Mason and Hayley never took their rings off - neither did Tyler, who received one when he graduated high-school - but they had had to learn how to handle their strength, their aggression, their tempers, by themselves, the same way everyone did. Hayley…struggled.

"Anyway…with Tyler in New Orleans, Carol's kind of become Spencer's surrogate grandmother," Giulia said. "And he spends a lot of time at our house."

"You seemed close," Stefan observed, and Giulia nodded. She didn't tell him that she was getting closer to losing her temper with Hayley. It wasn't the first time she had noticed a bruise on Spencer that _hadn't_ come from sports. Hayley always regretted losing her temper, lashing out at her son; but Spencer _hurt_ from it. He didn't have the supernatural healing of his parents - and her strength and volatility, to Spencer, were _normal_.

"He's a sweet kid," Giulia said honestly.

"Anyway…thank you for breakfast, and everything," Stefan said quietly, looking around uncertainly. "I should…I should probably go and make sure Rebekah's not snacking on the townspeople." Giulia nodded, and Stefan gave her an awkward smile before nodding and walking off. She watched him go, before turning back to the dishes she was drying, and a shadow fell over the table.

Glancing up, Matt's features were drawn in their now-familiar intense frown. He had frozen in his tracks on his way over to them for breakfast; he had seen Stefan, who had gone out of his way _not_ to ask about Grayson, who was now docile and dozy in his father's arms. Giulia reached out to tenderly stroke the back of her pinkie-finger along his bare, chubby arm, letting him curl his tiny fingers around the end of her finger. He _smiled_ at her, lazily. Matt looked like something was on the tip of his tongue, just didn't know if he should say it.

"Did you know?" he finally asked, accusation lacing his words. Intensity roiled off him, and Giulia wasn't surprised or offended. Stefan's return meant more for Matt's family than it did for anyone else, including Giulia. _She_ hadn't brought Stefan back to town, to throw everything up in the air; she wouldn't do that to Matt. All she could do was try her best to limit the damage. Hence, the Originals.

"Stefan's decade with Klaus is almost up; I guessed he'd be coming home soon. I didn't know he'd show up this weekend," Giulia said honestly, and she frowned gently. She looked Matt in the eye. "I would've given you prior warning if I'd known he'd show up here today. If Elena had been here…"

Matt looked down at Grayson, shielded from the sun by his father's broad shoulders. "Does he know?"

"I told him," Giulia said gently. "Not everything, but he knows you and Elena are married, that you have a son together. I didn't tell him…" She didn't tell Stefan, a notorious _fixer_ , that Elena was struggling. The idea of Elena suffering had always been Stefan's worst nightmare: Giulia didn't want him interfering in something that Elena should be leaning on Matt to help her get through - but wasn't. "I didn't tell him that she has post-partum depression."

"Does he know that you had Damon compel Elena to stop looking for him?" Matt asked. He had been there, just as Bonnie and Caroline and Tyler had, when Elena went off the rails trying to figure out a loophole to get Stefan out of Klaus' clutches, tracking his whereabouts, their kills… Giulia had put an end to it; the others knew Damon had compelled Elena to accept that Stefan was with Klaus. They had gifted her with acceptance; everything else, she had had to work out for herself, missing him, having no closure, no goodbye, just abandoned by the boy she loved so he could save his brother's life.

Giulia glanced at Matt, and nodded slowly. "He knows…after the near-miss in Tennessee…" She sighed heavily, remembering the farmhouse, Kol's help; "He knows."

"I - I'm worried how Elena will react to him being in town," Matt said softly. "They never… I know Elena doesn't love me - not the way she still loves him…"

" _Matt_ ," Giulia gasped softly, heartbroken.

"It's okay - I know it. You know, I've always known it. She's never looked at me or smiled the way he could make her smile, when she's with me, even before," Matt said, still cradling Grayson. Their relationship wasn't entirely loveless; Grayson had been born out of love. "We were happy together, you know, nothing's ever gonna be perfect and epic and…I just tried my best to give her the life she deserves and…and I love her… But I know that I'm the next-best thing. And that has to be okay; I got Gray out of it, you know? My life with Elena's been more than I ever imagined I'd ever have… I'm just…struggling."

"We know," Giulia said sorrowfully, wanting to tuck Matt and Grayson in her arms with Spencer and Mason and never let them go. Becoming a mother to Zita had sent her maternal instincts into overdrive: Orphaned at seventeen, her family had grown over the last decade to include Caroline, Matt, Rose, Enzo, Fabian, Zita, Spencer and Mason, Carol, Liz, Sheila and Bonnie, Kol, Sasha, her friends from various schools, Meredith, Victoire and Cara, even some of the contacts she had made while dismantling the empire of hatred and terror Klaus had built for himself over the last millennium. She knew her life was richer because of the people she had embraced in it; she wasn't like her father, who had cloistered himself away, drowning in his grief and loneliness. Her life wasn't perfect: Some of the choices she had made had affected her life now, like Matt, like Hayley, like Caroline, which was why she tried not to judge.

She rarely treated people the way they so often deserved, like Hayley, who was flaunting her affairs and bullying her son not to say a word to the father he adored, or Elena, who even before giving birth to Grayson had often needed a good hard slap, failing to appreciate the wonderful life she had with Matt. And worst of all, Matt knew it.

"Matt… You deserve _better_ ," Giulia said earnestly. He was the most hard-working, loyal person, and Fate kept dealing him one backhanded slap after another. Every time he found level footing, a new fissure appeared threatening to swallow him whole.

"I don't know what's gonna happen next," he said quietly, despondently, his expression so at odds with the beautiful morning sunshine making his eyes glow vivid blue.

"None of us do," Giulia said, although that was a white-lie. She didn't truthfully know what was going to happen with Elena; who could? "But whatever does come our way… You're not in this alone. You know you always have us. You have me and Zita, even Enzo, and Rose - Rose would do some _Game of Thrones_ -level nasty for you -" Matt gave a soft chuckle despite himself, because he knew that was true; Rose was the mother and sister and best-friend Matt had always deserved, rolled into one - "and there's Ric and Jenna, and Jeremy's probably the best little-brother anyone could ever have. Ashlyn adores Gray and she loves you, too… Whatever happens, we're here."

"I know," Matt said softly. "I couldn't've gotten through the last couple months without you all."

"Asking for help is the hardest thing you can ever do," Giulia said, from experience. "But I'm so glad I did, when Zita was a baby."

"You and me are both kinda in the same position, huh? I never appreciated how hard it was for you, with your husband… Elena's here but she's not, you know?" Giulia nodded. Fabian was physically distant; Elena was emotionally removed from her child's life.

"Fabian and I made the decision…because it was better for Zita," Giulia said quietly, thinking of her own choices, and the choices Matt might have to make soon. Things couldn't go on as they had. Reflecting on her separation, and Mason and Hayley's relationship, Giulia knew that sometimes, staying together for the sake of the kids was the last thing the kids needed: if Elena wouldn't get help, there had to be some kind of resolution. It wasn't safe for her; and it wasn't fair for Grayson - or for Matt.

"How… How do I tell her?" Matt asked, looking like the lost seventeen-year-old she remembered, his sister dead, his mother a mess, with only his friends for family.

"Maybe you don't," Giulia said, and Matt frowned. " _You_ don't have to be the one to tell her. That's not her life anymore… _You_ are."

"We should be," Matt corrected on a mumble, adjusting Grayson in his arms. Elena's post-partum was hardest on Matt, who had to bear the weight of being a new father to Grayson, and being a carer to a disinterested woman who didn't want help. "I should…I should get going…"

"You're not leaving, are you?"

"No… I promised Jer and Ashlyn I'd stay the weekend, so… I had a good time yesterday, I don't want anything to ruin that," Matt said; weekends like this were rare for him. And they had all learned; if they put their lives on hold for the supernatural, they would soon find themselves old or dead having never truly lived at all.

She watched Matt walk away across the grass, toward the tent he was sharing with Ashlyn and Jeremy. Camping with a two-month-old baby was easy for Matt, compared to taking care of Elena. It was Grayson's first 'stay-cation'; Giulia was sure Ashlyn had her camera out, going full-on Caroline Forbes on her still-unofficial nephew. Reminded of Ashlyn, Giulia's thoughts turned back to the witch-house, to Elijah, who had raised Ashlyn…

The fine hairs at the back of her neck tingled, and she turned, coming nose-to-nose with Kol. She yelled, and stepped back. " _Kol_!"

"Un-bloody-believable. Really, a _text_?"

"It was dark; you wouldn't have seen the smoke-signals!" Giulia retorted, gently pushing Kol a few paces back, maintaining some sense of personal space. He sighed heavily, grumbling, but stepped back, glowering.

"Of all the bloody weekends they had to turn up, they chose this one!"

"The cosmos has aligned."

"It's a fateful cockup, is what it is," Kol glared at nothing in particular. "Is Nik here?"

"Stefan said he left him at the National Park," Giulia said, watching as Kol, in his agitation, went to the back of the teardrop, and the liquor supply, and she listened to the familiar sounds of Kol mixing cocktails. It was nearly eleven a.m.

"So has your dear old uncle said anything?"

"Just from what he _didn't_ say it's clear he's been conditioned to keep Klaus' secrets to himself," Giulia replied, busying herself around the awning tidying up, putting things back inside the trailer, tripping over Gallant when he got underfoot. She glanced over at Zita, attempting to play badminton between the tents with J.D. and Ruth, and having a conversation using stilted sign-language - the Saltzman clan were learning ASL, which meant most of their friends and family had made the effort to learn some too; Giulia thought it was an excellent skill for Zita to have. "But he didn't deny anything."

"Did he mention the dreams?"

"No. I told him what I've heard; he didn't deny anything, but he didn't offer anything either," Giulia said.

"And Rebekah?"

"I only got a glimpse of her early this morning; she dismissed me completely. She's prettier than I'd thought," Giulia admitted.

"You've heard too many stories about what she's really like to think that her beauty's anything more than skin deep," Kol muttered, soft chinks and metallic ringing issuing from the back of the teardrop. Giulia pulled a face; she had read Stefan's journals and been treated to a decade's friendship with Kol, and all of the stories he told in manic-depressive drunken stupors. If anyone was bipolar, it was Kol, whose highs were stratospheric, and whose lows led to murder-sprees that made the Ripper of Monterrey look like an amateur. Giulia had learned the warning signs; and how to haul him out of his worst moods if she was too late to stop him sliding down the rabbit-hole.

"How long has it been since you've seen Rebekah?" Giulia asked.

"Last time I saw Bekah? 1919. The Great War had ended, dreaded Prohibition was on the horizon…the prodigal son Marcel had returned from the Front. Somehow Mikael found us living in the Vieux Carré," Kol sighed, and Giulia scented absinthe on the air. It was strange for Kol to speak so openly about Mikael; but then, Giulia knew the story of Kol's conception and early life through Elijah. Kol had told her things he hadn't spoken about in centuries; they had bonded over their mutual obsession with exploring the Occult. Mikael, the vampire who hunted vampires, was one of those stories. "Elijah had just enough time to pull the dagger from my heart before they all fled - Elijah to Europe; Nik and Rebekah to Chicago, as it turned out."

"Do you think Rebekah's been daggered this whole time?"

"More than likely. Here…" He handed Giulia a pale drink; she scented vermouth, gin, _Cointreau_ and fresh lemon-juice, and just a hint of absinthe. A preserved cherry garnished the drink that glowed like a moonstone in the sunlight.

"What's this?"

Kol gave her his signature smirk. "Corpse Reviver."

Irony through alcohol; she loved Kol.

* * *

 **A.N.** : So, it wasn't just Enzo who was abused; I have a thing for Kol, too. If they'd only listened to him in _TVD_ so many _truly awful_ plot-lines could've been avoided.


	6. Reunion

**A.N.** : I'm definitely going to tone down the 'Always and forever'-ness of Elijah's life being devoted to _Klaus_ , I mean, my degree is in History not Psychology but I've watched enough _Criminal Minds_ to be interested, and Elijah's basically the 'apath' to Klaus' Dark Tetrad narcissist, the key to normalising Klaus' behaviour and creating the illusion that Klaus can maintain normal relationships with others.

So for this chapter, if you fancy it, watch 'I'm Old-Fashioned' with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth on _YouTube_ ; and also Dusty Limits' 'Music of the Night' for the inspiration for Kol's cabaret; you won't be able to watch _Phantom_ the same way again…

Also, no matter what I write, I don't hate Rebekah; I just hate the way the writers portrayed her in _TVD_ as a petty little bitch (who we all loved as the only voice of truth who really stuck it to Elena when even Caroline backed down) and then gave her a dramatic character-shift in _The Originals_. I also wish they'd kept more of Rebekah's sultry Prohibition ele-glam (elegant-glam) aesthetic, you know? Who wouldn't want to see her embracing the _Downton Abbey_ obsession?

* * *

 **Machiavelli's Daughter**

 _06_

 _Reunion_

* * *

The Boarding House was transformed into an opulent nightclub, glowing in warm candlelight, small tables arranged with fine linen cloths, elegant flowers, silverware and delicate cut-crystal glasses filled with potent cocktails from a menu written by Kol, celebrating a bygone era: a fabulous Orchestra booked on loan from The Savoy in London performed 1920s and Thirties dance band songs and Old Hollywood movie-scores, two pretty blonde sisters in shimmering pale-pink 1930s evening-gowns singing along, while canapes were served with pre-dinner drinks.

Sunday-night at the Boarding House had become her favourite event during the festival, and it was the only time she ever forgot how much she hated the house. The main hall looked unrecognisable and extraordinary, and over the last handful of years the evening had only reached new heights of opulence. A seven-course meal was prepared to Michelin-standards, small beautiful dishes of extraordinary flavour served with complementing wines, starting with fresh oysters and Chablis and ending with a dessert of nectarines poached in elderflower and sweet wine with cherries, delicate petit-fours, a scoop of homemade gelato, with a sweet dessert wine, and after, a beautiful cheese-platter served with Champagne. As each course came and went, they were treated to the Orchestra; to burlesque dancers; to a blues singer who oozed sensuality; and as after-dinner cordials, cocktails and coffees were handed out - Giulia sipped cherry-brandy from a cordial glass just big enough for one preserved cherry - they were treated, finally, to Kol, who was not only a nightclub-owner and bartender in New Orleans and the evening's compere but a talented cabaret singer with a three-octave vocal range and one of the most hilarious, cultured comedians Giulia had ever witnessed in action.

In his element, Kol was extraordinary, flirtatious, especially with the men, like Alaric, whom he adored making uncomfortable even as he laughed; Kol was borderline inappropriate, at his most extroverted, charismatic, raunchy, flamboyant self, singing his naughty interpretations of everything from Sondheim to Bowie to Andrew Lloyd-Weber, his comedy and satirical sketches dedicated this year to the themes of decadence and disillusion - he called it _stand-up misery_ , and yet half the room had tears streaming down their faces, threatening to spill their drinks they were laughing so hard. Giulia could barely catch her breath; and after the Orchestra performed a handful of songs to round off the evening, accompanied by their singers and three of the burlesque dancers, she giggled and traipsed over to Kol, deliciously tipsy, exhilarated from _laughing_.

After Robin Williams' suicide people said the saddest people were the most talented at bringing laughter to others: If that was true, Kol was one of the greatest comedians. Over the last decade, with her Psychology PhD under her belt and Kol as one of her more intriguing case-studies, she had diagnosed Kol with bipolar disorder, stemming entirely from being turned into a vampire against his will; his life as a magical prodigy, a witch with untold potential, had been cut short, brutally, and irreversibly. He chased new highs, craved _connection_ ; he chased knowledge, had greater understanding of witchcraft than anyone in the world, and yet could not tap into it. He could only advise from the side-lines, missing the connection, regretting the choices made on his behalf, the source of great knowledge but never accepted by the community he yearned to belong to again, due to the nature of his existence he could not help.

Giulia couldn't sing, but she could play, and she perched on the bench beside Kol in front of the grand piano on the stage; and as people drifted out of the house she played and he sang, or sipped a cocktail, leaning his elbow on the piano and watching her, his smile sad, wistful, as she created the only kind of magic she could, _music_.

Whatever had happened that night at the quarry, whatever she had become, she now had heightened senses, and it was music she had the most staggering reaction to. Like Zita watching the colours swirl and dance as she listened to live blues or a Classical ballet on Giulia's stereo, Giulia was mesmerised by music; but it had taken her a long time after her transition to be able to listen to it without emotions overwhelming her. Sometimes the wrong song could leave her breathless, in agony, grief crippling her; other times, a strain of music was transcendent. Specific music triggered memories half-buried and she avoided certain songs because of their association, and the emotion that swept over her when she heard them.

To sit and play the piano with Kol seemed a simple thing - it had taken her years, and the birth of Zita, to be able to harness her emotions and play again.

Especially in this house.

"I'm glad you didn't leave yesterday," Giulia said softly, because it had been in the cards. The anticipation of this evening outweighed Kol's dread of being discovered by Rebekah, whom Giulia had spied yesterday a couple of times, dancing during the Charleston-a-thon as if her afterlife - and her philanthropic contributions to the local cancer hospice - depended on it. Giulia had also overheard Stefan convincing her _not_ to compel the judges of the Mr and Ms Vintage competitions to vote her the winner; and earlier this afternoon, she had stood with a cocktail in her hand, dressed in her Flapper finest, watching, mesmerised, as Giulia and Aljaž had commemorated the centenary of Rita Hayworth's birth with a recreation of her famous dance with Fred Astaire in _You Were Never Lovelier_ to the Orchestra's rendition of 'I'm Old-Fashioned', an introduction to the evening's ballroom-competition on the dancefloor in front of the main arena bandstand.

Giulia still wore the elegant and risqué evening-gown Chocolat had recreated from footage of the noire film, his early birthday-gift to her, her hair set in curls and styled like Rita's, and she sipped a fresh cocktail from a little glass and played with Kol, resting her aching feet; she had been dancing all weekend, Swing, jive, the Charleston-a-thon, master-classes and competitions, and she _loved it_. The festival, Rose's brainchild, had become an institution at the Boarding House, though how long it could continue without the magic breaking, Giulia didn't know; too much of a good thing, and all that. They would need to be _selective_ in upcoming years; there was no point letting the event get too big, or the bubble would burst and the wonderful, relaxed, old-timey family feeling of the thing would be eclipsed by loudmouth drunks and obnoxious advertising.

She didn't want the festival, her experiences of it, to be ruined. Perhaps this might be the last summer she attended for a while; she could keep her rich memories of spending wonderful times with her friends, when their families were young and healthy and full of joy and anticipation, with four-year-old Zita surprising her with a Shirley Temple dance, with Kol's cabaret performances, dancing with Aljaž to honour Rita Hayworth, and she could move on.

Some things, she had learned, she just had to let go. The memories were her treasures, long after the people and the places that had made them were altered. She couldn't imagine living a thousand years, _comparing_ her experiences. She tried not to do that, to take each event as its own experience. Sometimes it worked. It depended on who she was with.

Giulia enjoyed most things; some things, she endured. This weekend, she had embraced with everything she had, surrounded by her friends, her _family_ , with good music and even better food during extended meals with the people she loved, dancing until her toes blistered and bled, making memories that had to last lifetimes.

She glanced over at Kol. "Are you ready for your surprise?"

* * *

Headlights illuminated the delicate sheers over the tall windows and made the polished wood of the dining-table gleam, glittering off silverware and briefly there was a lull in the laughter, the conversations flying thick and fast over fine wine and a platter of ripe stoned fruit, honey-drizzled soft cheeses Finn had made himself from a flock of goats, warm flatbreads, beautiful Parma ham, toasted salted almonds and squares of dark-chocolate he nibbled on between sips of decadent red wine. Music played softly in the background, Gyda's choice this time, introducing Lagertha to _punk_ , while Finn and Isak played an ancient board-game and they _laughed_ , teasing each other, exchanging stories, sharing books and magazines and laughing at shared memories over bottles of wine, the scent of late-flowering lily-of-the-valley and sweet-peas and white forget-me-nots teasing his nose from the vase on the sideboard, the delicate breeze from the open windows bringing in the scent of sun-baked grass and wildflowers and the melodic sound of water from the creek late into the evening as Elijah sat, and laughed, and enjoyed the simple, rare pleasure of just holding his daughter's hand.

He might have been forgiven for thinking he had finally achieved Valhalla. Were not all his siblings present, and even Gyda, tried and true warriors who had fought in the shield-wall? Perhaps the Valkyries had plucked them from the mortal plane, at long last, and whisked them to the great hall of Odin, where their fellow _einherjar_ feasted nightly and prepared for _Ragnarök_.

Yes, Elijah might be forgiven for believing it. He had woken, an I.V. drip-feeding him blood to assuage the worst of his hunger, gentling his way back to consciousness. The silver-dagger he remembered so vividly being plunged into his heart by Niklaus was gone, the old blood on his now-incinerated shirt the only evidence that he had been stabbed there: The dagger was gone.

And Gyda had sat at the side of the low cot he found himself lying on, watching the dust-motes whorl gold in the sunlight streaming into a renovated attic room. She had smiled at him, gently, and caressed his face with cool fingers that smelled of nail-lacquer and jasmine lotion.

He had never imagined in all these years that when he finally reunited with his daughter she would have cropped her hair in a shining chestnut _pixie-cut_ that highlighted her deep brown eyes and fine bone-structure - but she had. And it was her haircut more than anything that told Elijah in that moment that her appearance was not a dream; that he had been woken from his slumber; that they were not in Valhalla, no matter how much it felt like they were. Peace. He felt _peace_.

She had given him blood-bags, embraced him for an age, and smiled knowingly when an unknown barber attacked his hair, bringing him reluctantly into the Twenty-First Century with a hot shave and a cropped haircut _almost_ as short as Gyda's. She had let him shower, had laid out a tailored _Burberry_ suit and had led him downstairs to the sound of voices that were too familiar to be believed, the scent of turned earth and herbs, freshly-ground coffee and oil paints, a television on, and his _family_ playing old games around a coffee-table.

His _family_.

Someone had brought them together, in this beautiful house with a view of a gurgling creek and beautiful parterres behind and the woods beyond a sculptured front-garden, where each of his siblings had a room of their own and seemed to have been here some time, bringing their character to the magnolia canvas. A room had been left spare for him; he had rarely slept since the dagger had been removed.

Had it been Niklaus who had woken him, Elijah knew from experience that he would have been ordered to follow his brother's lead in dealing with some crisis of his own creation, manic and paranoid and demanding, as self-absorbed and frightened as ever, cruel and impatient, and accusing him of failing him when it was Niklaus who had sunk a dagger into his heart.

They were in Mystic Falls, in a refurbished house that had centuries ago been the sight of a massacre of witches… They had not been woken by Niklaus; someone had allowed them to remain at the house, in the sunshine, acclimating to this time, reacquainting themselves with the family-members they hadn't seen in centuries - Finn out of his casket for the first time in 900 years; Isak, no fewer than five centuries.

Finn, Isak, Lagertha, Gyda; the last he knew, Kol had of course been safe in the Salvatore Boarding House while Klaus arranged everything to lift Mother's spell. He had wondered, briefly, where Rebekah was.

And then they told her that Giulia had stolen them from their coffins, right under Klaus' nose, and removed the daggers.

Giulia, whom Elijah had watched _laugh_ as she danced into the flames as a transitioned vampire, depriving Klaus of the sadistic pleasure, the pathological _need_ to driving a stake into her heart - symbol of Niklaus' impotence if ever there was one.

In the moonlight Elijah had paused, broken by the blackened, smouldering husk that had once been a vibrant seventeen-year-old young-woman. His Giulia. Courageous, exquisite, amorous, brilliant Giulia with her vivid silver-grey eyes, toned thighs and throbbing intellect, her large hands and long, elegant fingers, extraordinary cheekbones and a sense of loyalty and responsibility that surpassed even Elijah's. Extraordinary, imperfect Giulia with her traffic-stopping figure, a young, borderline-alcoholic, who conquered what was above her strength through sheer tenacity, the open-minded, compassionate, _brave_ young-woman who had snuck up on him, embedded deep in his heart before he had even realised it.

He didn't let people in. He had run headlong for Giulia, obsessed with her fierce intellect, mindless with lust for her, relaxed in their bond, opening up to her as he hadn't opened himself to anyone in all his years; he had never wanted anyone the way he _yearned_ for her - his last thought before oblivion as Niklaus had sunk the dagger into his heart was _her_.

Giulia, who was dead.

Giulia, whom his siblings and his daughter claimed had reunited them. _Stolen_ them, from right under Niklaus' nose.

Perhaps he _was_ dreaming.

Giulia was dead: He had seen what had remained of her after her noble, devastating act of self-sacrifice.

According to the human barber, it was ten years since Klaus' ritual at the quarry - since Giulia's death. A full decade. And he was, indeed, in Mystic Falls.

The headlights receded, leaving the soft amber glow of the room to settle as talk picked up again, his siblings disinterested by the interruption, but Elijah could hear that there wasn't another house for miles: they were surrounded by nature. Therefore whoever had driven here, whoever was now walking up the garden path, had gone out of their way to come here.

He glanced at Gyda, who was listening out of the corner of her ear, and yet who didn't seem concerned by the unexpected visitors. Two sets of footsteps, one in heels, approached the house, and Elijah froze, staring at Gyda in mingled horror and confusion, as he listened to the voices, sounding tipsy and relaxed and happy, two _familiar_ voices - and yet they couldn't be right.

The door-handle clicked, and two people spilled into the elegant foyer, laughing, in mid-conversation, flushed from drink and exhilaration, sparkly-eyed and beaming, dressed to the nines - him, in a sleek tuxedo, and _her_ …

"- _you're not going to tell me_?"

"You'll see!" A rich laugh, an extraordinary smile.

His eyes stung, and he shot to his feet, still gripping Gyda's hand in his without realising it, his insides disappearing, weightless with shock, as she twirled, closing the front-door, the candlelight shimmering off the details of her 1940s-style evening gown modelled after one of his favourite Rita Hayworth outfits, feather-light and giving the illusion of lace without underpinnings moulding to her torso. There was something unearthly graceful in the way she moved now, but Elijah would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to recognise her - and he stared, feeling as if a freight-train had gone full steam ahead into his stomach…

 _Giulia_.

It couldn't be.

And yet…she had grown up. At seventeen she had been arrestingly pretty, all cheekbones and silvery eyes, beautiful lips and lots of thick dark hair and a curvy figure kept toned by athletics, elegant arms and large hands with long, clever fingers that danced over the keys of a piano like an effortless ballerina dancing across a stage.

 _Now_ … Her prettiness had matured; she was _dauntingly_ beautiful. Heart-stopping, _awing_ in her intensity.

Flawless fair skin and dark hair touched by the sun giving it warmth, the startling contrast of those shocking icy grey eyes framed with dark lashes, cheekbones to cut diamonds with; her figure was toned, and womanly now, a mouth-watering hourglass, her elegant arms and hands pale and toned against her black gown.

Gyda took the wine-glass from his hand, as Elijah felt himself drawn to her. _Giulia_.

Kol draped himself in the doorway, his expression shocked, appraising, mocking, delighted, as his cousins rose from the table to laugh and greet him, Gyda jumping into his arms, wrapping herself around him with a delighted shout.

And Giulia was there, in front of him, the candlelight making love to her bone-structure and the shimmers of copper and gold and molasses in her hair, and the details of her ball-gown, and he scented absinthe and cherries on her beautiful lips and saw the wistful, heartsick look in her unusual eyes glowing silvery ice-grey in the candlelight, his heightened vision picking out the nuances of colour that reminded him of storm-clouds illuminated by lightning, shards of silver and quartz and grey-diamond and aquamarine refracting light.

His fingers shook as he reached out with one hand, ghosting his fingertips against her jaw, a shining curl, his senses overwhelmed as he allowed the scent of her skin and her perfume mingled together to flow over him, the strong, steady beat of her heart music to his ears as his eyes consumed her, every single tiny detail - the faintest hint of laughter-lines at the corners of her eyes; the subtle change in the shape of her elegant eyebrows from what he remembered; the sparse makeup she wore flattering her features; the tiniest of bumblebee stud earrings in her cartilage piercing, the way the lace of her gown gave the illusion that she showed more of her magnificent figure than she actually did, Chocolat's lacework and signature artistry hinting that former acquaintances had been nurtured over a decade into friendship. Even her posture had altered, her shoulders back, her breasts proudly pushed forward, her chin level with the ground. Warmth emanated from her, her heartbeat was strong and lulling and Elijah stood, and stared, his eyes burning, unable to breathe.

He was shocked, and confused; he had seen her dead, burned beyond recognition. He had watched her dance into the flames, victorious in death.

Elijah hadn't realised just _how_ victorious in death.

They were so close he could taste the bourbon-soaked cherries on her lips, felt the warmth of her body like a furnace, lulled; he let her natural scent wash over him, intoxicating; and his hands landed heavily on her waist, wanting to drag her close and keep her there, but he couldn't move, frozen with shock, could only hold on to her. Less than a week ago, she had been burned beyond recognition.

He had been struggling to reconcile that fact, even as he enjoyed his reunion with his siblings, his daughter. The horror of Giulia's death, the knowledge that Klaus was free and running amok…

Now she stood before him, a mesmerising film-noire dancer in the flesh, tasting of bourbon, cherries and champagne, the soft, spicy scent of her perfume mingling with her natural scent, warm, _alive_.

" _Giulia_ ," he bit out in a rush, shocked, his vision blurring.

Over the centuries he had become numbed to his heightened senses; rarely did he experience the jolt of heightened emotion that came with an intensified state of being. Now he did.

She was here, _alive_ , in his arms. She rested long-fingered, elegant hands on his arms, leaning in to his body, delicately licking her lips, gasping; she had always been tall, and in her low heels she was the same height, maybe a little taller even. And as he gazed at her, speechless, drinking in those silver eyes, she never looked away, never broke eye-contact, just gazed back, the emotion playing across her face in a rare display he couldn't remember. She had become excellent at concealing her emotions, even controlling her heartbeat. A single crystalline tear slipped down her cheek, and Elijah scented the salty tang of it on the air, heard it fall against the delicate mesh of her top.

His hands shaking, he reached up, to delicately wipe that tear away, and to cradle her face in his hands, his eyes swimming, burning, tenderly brushing his thumbs against her cheekbones, memorising the details of her face again, now that time had passed. He swallowed, and tears slipped down his face, and he let out a choked breath as she rested her forehead against his, the gesture comforting. They never looked away, never blinked. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers, tasting the absinthe and cherries and her warmth, almost panting for breath, and Giulia looked wistful and _young_ when he drew back, the Giulia he remembered from last week.

"You died," he whispered, the reality of her burned corpse still fresh in his mind. Days ago. _Years_ ago.

"I got better," Giulia said, with a tremulous smile.

"How?" Elijah asked softly. "How is this possible?"

"I'm stronger than you," Giulia whispered playfully, and she winked as he gave a tearful, shaky laugh.

"Giulia…" he sighed, shaking his head softly.

"I've missed you," Giulia murmured, heartfelt and earnest, _sorrowful_.

"I saw you dead," Elijah whispered, heartsick. "I saw you burned."

"I'm alright," she told him, leaning in to kiss his cheek softly, lowering her hands to take his from her waist, intertwining their fingers, holding him so close he could feel her heat, the lush curves of her breasts beneath the diaphanous lace. She delicately kissed the tears from his cheeks. " _Shh_ , I'm alright. I'm alright." She whispered it over and over, a prayer almost, soothing him.

Days ago she was dead.

Here she was, humming with vitality.

He stroked his thumbs against her hands between their bodies pressed close, holding on as if to a lifeline, and blinked, startled into the present, away from the harrowing memory of Giulia's self-sacrifice and its aftermath, by the cool tang of metal on his tongue as his thumb brushed her fingers. The pad of his thumb brushed against one, two, three bands of precious metal, and he felt the distinctive cool silkiness of a pearl - her mother's pearl solitaire ring she never took off - and precious stones in a more elaborate setting.

He frowned, perplexed. In wonder, he murmured, "You are married." He glanced down at Giulia's hands, her large pale beautiful hands and long, elegant fingers tipped with filed fingernails painted a delicate blushing nude, and saw the candlelight gleam off her mother's pearl, the light shimmering and sparkling off of several diamonds set into a daisy in a stunning, eye-catching ring.

 _Married_. The freight-train hit again.

Giulia's smile was heartbroken, not delighted; why wasn't she happy? "I'm a lot of things," she told him softly. Even her voice had matured, softer than he remembered, richer, sultry like smoky whiskey, and her Virginian accent had gentled, a harsher inflection on her T's like the English.

He held her hands in his, and smiled tremulously. "You're _alive_."

"And you're awake," she said, and gave him a beautiful smile, as if she had been waiting to do so for far too long. Ten years. She had waited ten years. "I like the haircut."

Still stunned, Elijah murmured, "Gyda wished for us to match," and Giulia's eyes crinkled delicately as she laughed, flashing her beautiful white smile - and the barest hint of dainty little fangs. Unbidden, and in spite of the rings on her finger that seemed to burn his skin as he held her hands in his, he leaned in to kiss her one more time, and lingered on her lips. She was alive.

Alive.

She had…she had _survived_.

She had survived - not just the ritual: She had survived death, transition to a vampire, and death as a vampire by fire. Burning alive was not the gentlest way to go; Elijah knew from experience. How? He would dearly love to know - and gazed at her, hoping this wasn't the illusion, the lie. Was she here? Was…was this his Valhalla? Or another dream in his oblivion?

Here she stood, intoxicating in her beauty, lush and beautiful and tipsy and emotional and with the daintiest, most delectable-looking fangs he had ever seen, and had the strangest impulse to lick. Her heart beat fiercely, her warmth relaxed his body, still stiff from recent desiccation, her blood smelled delicious, and her tears disappeared, replaced by a warm, sad smile, as she leaned in to rub her cheek against his as a cat might to display affection, subtly separating their bodies, and he reluctantly let go of her hands.

"You - I - I can't - You are a _devious - little - minx!_ " Kol blurted, incandescent with shock and mingled amusement, grabbing Giulia by the waist to tickle her so she threw her head back and laughed, wriggling away from him as he attempted to blow raspberries on her neck. It was _familiar_ : The two were close. And Kol looked entranced with Giulia as his tipsy, breathless grin showed just how handsome Elijah's cousin truly was.

" _Surprise_ ," she cooed softly, and a laugh rumbled up from Kol's chest, shining through his eyes.

"If you weren't such a poppet you'd be in for a smacked bottom, young lady!" Kol declared, hanging from around Gyda's neck as she beamed, giddy. Kol grinned, unlatching himself from Gyda, to throw his arms around Elijah in a tight hug, embracing like brothers.

It was always interesting to watch the family dynamics shift when one or another of the members of their family joined them: and they always shifted, and the camaraderie and warm glow of family always faded. Elijah had experienced the un-daggering of his family far too many times not to know how things worked.

Lagertha and Gyda were warm with each other, respectful and friendly, supportive; in an argument Lagertha stood before Gyda, blocking any attempt to harm her, and if Lagertha was the target, Gyda reciprocated, protecting her aunt. Gyda had always admired her eldest-surviving aunt, the martial Lagertha who had lost her children to plague and war: Gyda had lost her mother to childbirth, her brothers and sisters to famine and plague. All because of the selfish actions of one person. Together, Lagertha and Gyda were _friends_ as well as family; they had often spent decades as companions, exploring the world together, they supported and protected each other and in spite of her losses Lagertha was nurturing, deeply maternal toward those she viewed as worthy of the effort.

Had Rebekah been in the room the atmosphere would have cooled; it was young, exhausted Gyda, buried under grief at the death of her mother and siblings she had tried to keep alive, who had picked up Lagertha's shield after Mikael cut his own daughter down - to _fight_ for her right to live. It was Gyda who tried valiantly to fight and protect herself and her older, spoiled aunt who thought men were there to protect her, would never have dreamed of picking up a sword herself, in spite of the stories of the fate of their mother's sister, Dagmaer, who had been overpowered by raiders and left broken in the spring snows, her bond with magic - and her mind - forever fractured. Esther had healed Dagmaer's body but nothing could soothe her mind; she had nurtured her sister through an unwanted pregnancy, and after his birth took Dagmaer's unwanted infant and raised Kol as her own, long before she had ever felt Elijah quickening in her belly.

Women in their family had learned long ago that either by sword or by harnessing Nature's strength they had to learn to defend themselves: Elijah had been raised fiercely feminist, every woman he knew holding a position of strength - his mother a respected wise-woman, healer, strategist and advisor to a much-younger husband she had chosen for herself and helped to rise to the position of _jarl_ ; Lagertha, a shield-maiden as well as a mother; Freyja, their mother's disciple in witchcraft, insanely talented; and Torvi… _his_ Torvi, his wife, Gyda's mother, and mother to six more of his children lost to the ravages of war - she had fought in the shield-wall during spring raids right alongside him, had saved Elijah's life several times before she had decided she could do worse for a husband, and took him to bed amid the furs during one memorable spring snowstorm.

Yes, Gyda and Lagertha were close, respected each other, and disdained Rebekah as an affront to their upbringing: They despised Klaus. Isak and Kol loathed one another, their own image reflected back at them: Kol adored Gyda, the sole survivor of her generation after the devastation on their family, and a stubborn flickering light in a sea of darkness in spite of it. Finn had not been woken in nine centuries, almost a stranger to them now - but once, he had been Elijah's best-friend; they had worked their farm together, lived in proximity, Finn had helped raise Elijah's children as the quiet, steady uncle Elijah trusted to keep them safe in his absence. Lagertha had had her own family, and had once laughed at Isak's propensity to bed any female within leagues - freewoman or slave, maiden or married woman. She had grown impatient with his behaviour, becoming more irreverent the longer they lived, the more removed they became from their old lives and any sense of responsibility.

In their human lives, Isak and Kol had once been inseparable: over the course of their lives as vampires their bond had altered, especially in the early centuries after fleeing Marseilles, during which the two had body-hopped across Asia from one witch's body to another, learning all they could, until one delectably nasty coven had ousted them so decisively that Kol had suffered nightmares for decades - which took some doing, after what they had seen. Kol and Isak were both former witches, who remembered their family in the Old World, remembered _Freyja_ , the lives they had lived, and who despised what they were; mirror images, they could no longer stand the sight of each other, and had frequently come to blows.

The last time they had all been united, the dynamics had already begun shifting. Isak would back down to Elijah, the eldest, possibly to Finn, who remembered clearest the brutal times in which they had been raised and would not hesitate to put his younger siblings in their places, especially after the death of Freyja had left him irrevocably lonely, no matter what Elijah did to try to help lessen his pain. Lagertha was her own woman and always had been, and it was her the older siblings sometimes turned to for guidance, the way Mikael had once turned to Mother; and Gyda had been allowed the freedom to grow, emotionally and intellectually if not in body. She still looked as fresh and young as the day she had been murdered, all dark eyes, romantic lashes and sweet lips like her mother's that gave the illusion of utter tenderness, masking the iron will beneath. Her dark eyes held the sadness that came with experience, wisdom; but also the delicate glint of something like hope that even Niklaus could never fully extinguish.

They were missing Rebekah, who caused such friction with Lagertha and Gyda because she knew they had no respect for her, and Niklaus, who always demanded he be the centre of attention. Long gone were the days when any of them had hoped they might once more enjoy a day with their brother Willem, the first child born in their new home after Freyja's death, elder-brother to Niklaus, Rebekah and the long-dead Henrik, who had been Gyda's friend and companion and a stern boy who seemed to have inherited all the sense of responsibility Niklaus had always lacked.

Elijah and the others had learned to go on without Willem after he disappeared, to stop looking for him in every face, in every strange city; Elijah had never breathed a word to the others when he had run into him by shocking chance in the streets of Manhattan decades ago. He pretended it hadn't hurt that Willem had stood him up for a drink. But it had.

It had been a very long time since all of them had been gathered in a room together like this - no nefarious plots, no Niklaus, no sniping from Rebekah or thinly-veiled threats between Kol and Isak.

The new variable was, of course…Giulia.

Giulia, who had extracted vows from Elijah before she strode headlong to her death like the truest warrior, her fear the opportunity for astounding courage.

She had asked for his trust.

He gazed at her, realisation dawning. His first thought had not been that this reunion was down to Giulia; because Giulia was _dead_. The promises she had made to him were made redundant by her self-sacrifice.

"Do you know, I think we're going to need drinks. _Copious_ drinks," Kol declared, and Giulia nodded, suddenly smiling, gesturing toward the sideboard.

"Everything's in there," she said, and Kol went to explore the cupboards. Kol's face was a picture as he opened the doors and examined unopened bottles of absinthe and St Germaine and small-batch distillery gin and bitters and all the makings of a true speakeasy.

"It's like I'm not even related to any of you at all! Truthfully, I'm shocked; I expected better from you, Gyda. Is there at least a working ice-machine in this place?" Kol asked, shaking his head, as he removed bottles and equipment from the cabinet. Elijah started, on edge, when Giulia disappeared; she returned, bearing an ice-bucket, smiling warmly. "Thank you - see, this is why you get the Amarena cherries, and I would be remiss if I didn't keep you deliciously squiffy, what with all the emotional trauma flying around in this room." He gestured with a flourish at Elijah, who raised his eyebrows, but caught Giulia's eye and her smile and settled down in his chair next to Gyda, watching Kol create cocktails for Finn and Isak and Lagertha to taste _for the very first time_ , Rob Roys and Hummingbirds and Between the Sheets and Bee's Knees and Gin Blossoms and Manhattans and Martinis, juleps and an Old Fashioned. Giulia sat, the picture of elegance, in her ball-gown and set curls, her diamonds glittering as she cradling Rebekah's old favourite, the De La Louisiane, glimmering in the candlelight and laughing, slipping seamlessly into the flow of conversation that started up again as naturally as if there had been no interruption, the way families and best-friends could pick up after a long absence as if no time had passed.

They were in company, and he was devastated, and enthralled, by Giulia's… _survival_. Her _life_.

He was curious; she had _thrived_.

As the evening turned into the early hours and the stars grew dim and the earliest birds started to chirp surreptitiously in the purplish bruised pre-dawn, they had shared around drinks to taste, Kol going into fits of nostalgia and delight on hearing that Finn had been making his honey _mead_ again; they played games Elijah had forgotten; and shifted around the table until he found Giulia sat beside him while Kol caught up with his cousins, and Gyda laughed with tears streaming down her face, sat at Kol's knee, sipping a Hummingbird, and Isak and Finn played another ancient board-game.

Elijah glanced from his brothers and sister, his cousin, his only surviving child, to Giulia, who was in conversation with Kol across the dining-table, delicately sipping her drink, her eyes bright, relaxed in her chair.

He observed the way they were with her, the familiarity, the bond, their conversations, the way Finn gravitated toward her wherever she was in the room, Isak's thinly-veiled distrust, the delight in Gyda's eyes as she giggled and sipped her drinks and Kol and Giulia's conversation ebbed and flowed, filled with jokes and stories, clever, almost intimate, bouncing off one another.

"All this is your doing," he said softly, as Giulia rose to her feet, fishing out of her empty glass the silver cocktail-stick on which three preserved cherries were skewered. She savoured the cherries, eating them one after the other, glancing from face to face as the conversation petered off, watching them. Licking her lips, she set her glass on the table, her eyes flicking over his face.

"I made you a promise," she said softly, and Elijah's heart ached. He remembered her promise, their vows to each other. To trust in her. He looped his arms around her waist again, drawing her in for a hug, lifting her off her feet; she wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder, and he heard her tiny sigh, the thump of her heartbeat, felt the delicate stroke of her fingertips through his hair at the back of his neck.

He tried to put into his embrace what he didn't yet know how to put into words. And he released her too soon, mindful of the diamond ring on her finger.

"I gave myself ten years…" Giulia said softly, clearing her throat, sliding a glance at Kol, whose face grew sombre, "before they returned to Mystic Falls."

Elijah frowned subtly. "Who returned?"

"Stefan…with Klaus."

Stefan _with_ Klaus?

A ripple seemed to flicker across the room, passing from one person to the next, the minute, almost unnoticeable reactions to his family hearing that name, the name of their monstrous half-brother, the nightmare who daggered them in punishment for daring to live their own lives without him as the centre of them.

Elijah frowned at Giulia, remembering… Before he had been stabbed, he remembered the young Stefan Salvatore, a vampire in constant inner-torment, appearing at the loft Alaric Saltzman had called his home, and which Klaus had appropriated. He had said something about his brother Damon, who had been bitten by a werewolf girl. He had been guided to Klaus, searching for a cure… One of the loopholes of Klaus' new state of being. His blood cured werewolf-bites.

He sighed heavily, realising that ten years asleep meant he had missed ten of the most pivotal years for Klaus since they became vampires in the first place. "There is much we must discuss."

"Hence, libations," Kol spoke up, offering Elijah another Between the Sheets. "Personally I can't discuss Niklaus in any degree of sobriety. And since I spied your _darling_ sweet sister Rebekah just this afternoon, I think we're going to need a few more bottles of the good stuff. Your timing is impeccable, poppet. Or - _ominous_. Do you have some kind of Original fang-dar?"

"I have an App for that," Giulia said drily, catching Elijah's eye. He sidled closer.

"What happened after I was daggered?" he asked quietly. "How did you come to -?" He gestured at the others.

" _Steal_ you? It's a long story that makes me look frankly brilliant," Giulia said, and Elijah's lips twitched. She gave him a subtle wink, but her features sobered up as she sighed. "After he daggered you, Klaus gave a bottle of his blood to cure Damon, in exchange for Stefan's indentured servitude for a 'decade-long bender' as the Ripper of Monterrey… Stefan has been your brother's caretaker and spank-moppet for ten years; his time is nearly up."

"And you worry Niklaus will not honour the terms of his agreement," Elijah guessed.

Giulia frowned softly. "It's more than just your brother giving me sleepless nights," she said ominously. She reached up, and gave him a strange smile as she cupped his cheek tenderly, looking slightly lost for a second. He reached up to press his hand against hers, astonished to feel its warmth seeping into his cool skin. "He's just at the forefront for the moment…"

He realised, then, "You shouldn't be alive." He gasped softly, devastated by the implications. "Niklaus, his transformation -"

"According to reliable sources, he's not gained any more control than he had the night you saw him under the full-moon's influence," Giulia said seriously.

"He will think you have something to do with his deficiencies," Elijah knew. He blinked quickly. "And…Elena Gilbert?"

"She revived after the ritual, just as Sheila's spell intended," Giulia said, licking her lips. "Neither of us should be alive after what he did… And Stefan's brought him back to town. He's on human-blood again; I don't think he even thought about the implications to us…" She looked disappointed, but not surprised; he remembered her relationship with Stefan was rocky at best, and he supposed ten years with Niklaus had done nothing to help change that.

Elijah looked Giulia in the eye and vowed: "I will not allow Niklaus to harm you."

Her smile was sad, but it was a hopeful kind of sad. "I didn't pull that dagger out of you to turn you into a guard-dog… I did it…for you." In an instant he caught a glimpse of the devastatingly brilliant, courageous, shy girl he had adored, the one who still blushed during sex but turned into a chillingly brutal warrior when her friends were under threat.

He nodded, and told her, "I will not allow you to be harmed."

* * *

 **A.N.** : Let's all just take the opportunity to swoon over Elijah… If the writers constantly abused Enzo and Kol, what does that mean for how they brutalised his character over the last couple of seasons of _The Originals_?


End file.
